Managed to clear some more junk out of the store. A couple of guys were buying instruments to take to Central America. They wanted the most beat-up cheapest stuff in the store. Four trumpets and a trombone. I made 'em an offer they couldn't refuse. Or maybe it was vice versa.

When rental season comes around in the fall, the kids are going to be playing new or mostly new stuff. The other kids will notice. It's frankly embarrassing to open up your beat-up case at 5th grade band practice and pull out some banged up piece of metal with the lacquer mostly worn off. I know. That's why I took the first opportunity to dump the baritone the other day. I'll get a new one for the poor kid who ends up playing the thing. A new baritone is pricey - but it'll look pretty for ten years, even assuming the occasional ding. I think a poignant reason for the lack of professional baritone players is that only music stores more than twenty years old will have them, and the horns will be at least that old.

Speaking of horns and such - I've still got a lot of old trombones to push off. This also relates to the last paragraph. I find that I can guess the age of a horn by its smell. Past twenty-five years and no matter how well they were cleaned they just smell nasty. Old horn smell. It's less pronounced but slightly evident after about twelve years. You can run cleaning swabs through them all day and bathe them in clorox and they'll still smell the same. If you want the technical details OK. Your spit reacts with metal, particularly brass. Didja' ever make batteries by pouring lemon juice on an old silver dime? Same thing. Electrolytic solution. Think battery acid. Long term chemical reaction.