NEW SILVER TRUMPETS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 5

NEW SILVER TRUMPETS

FIRST FOR 50 YEARS OLD ONES POLISHED HALF AWAY [By Air Mail—Special Correspondent] LONDON, 3rd December. Eight new heraldic trumpets each made of solid silver weighing 30oz and worth about £4O, have been ordered by the Household Cavalry for use on State occasions. The old ones originally weighed the same when they were made 50 years ago, but to-day about half their weight had disappeared. ’lt's cleaning that does it,” said an official of the instrument makers this week. ‘They polish, then the instrument gets dented, so they send it back to have the dent knocked out. In time the metal wears so thin, that you can and do—put your finger through it.”

Though the pattern of the new trumpet is modelled on that of the old, which dates back to the “eighties,” the firm making them was compelled to get in touch with the military authorities and say: “The new trumpets will be nearly twice the weight of the old ones!”

The wear of half a century has wrought the model to half the original weight, and the silver was almost paper-thin. Their tone was tested for absolute accuracy by a scientific instrument called the resonoscope, whereby the note of the trumpet was passed through a cathode ray and the ray projected and held, on to a glass dial. It appeared in a zig-zag line.

Had the note been sharp, the luminous ray would have run off to the right; had it been flat it would have corkscrewed away to the left. Every single piece of the trumpet from the mouthpiece to the “bell” had to be sent to the assay office to be individually hall-marked.