Octavin

Phil Anthony

I am a retired high school band director in Lubbock, TX USA. I have a friend whose father was also a band director. He has an Octavin he would like to sell. It seems to be in very good condition. Could you give me a direction to go for contacts that might be interested in purchasing this instrument?

Thanks-- Phil Anthony
 
Congrats on surviving in the "trenches" until you could retire. :) Thanks for introducing me to an instrument I had never seen or heard of.
 
The best recommendation on where to sell is always going to be eBay. It is possible that someone here might be interested in such a thing -- or over at sneezy.org -- but if you want to have the largest exposure and probably the best price, eBay is a logical choice.

Adler Octavins in good shape seem to be selling in the $2000 to $2600 range, based on brief Googling.
 
Using/creating a well-researched eBay ad, I have been able to sell everything I've put out there. There is a learning curve to learning how to do good ads (find similar, run draft past this group, etc.), but I suspect as a teacher, you wouldn't have a problem sussing this out. If it's just more work than you wanna do, sometimes that's how I feel, you can sell locally through word of mouth, Craig's List, and such. Good luck.
 
Pete's estimate is in line with the only octavin sold on Ebay in the past 12 months. It was listed on 8/1/12 with a starting price of $2995 and had no bids. When relisted on 8/6/12 starting at $2445 it was sold for the starting bid price. The make and other information about condition was not available since the search was beyond 90 days.

Just a reminder to others on the Woodwind Forum that I have a subscription to Terapeak Research Service which enables me to search Ebay sales for the past 12 months. I would be happy to do a search for anyone who asks.
 
I'll probably shoot you something about the eBay research thing a bit later, JBT.

The search I did on the Octavin was actually through Google, not eBay: they didn't have anything still in their cache. Nice to know I nailed it on the value!

I've not played an Octavin. I've seen a couple, in person. The most "exotic" horn I've played would either be a bass sax or Bb contrabass clarinet. If you consider those "exotic," that is :p.
 
Merlin said:
Am I the only person here who's actually played an octavin?
Click to expand...

Merlin - Maybe. I've only seen one, in good shape but not ready to play. I asked a rare instrument dealer in Germany about an Octavin once and he replied "Save your money for a real instrument." It was enough to scare me away because he was a pretty knowledgeable cat.
 
Merlin said:
Am I the only person here who's actually played an octavin?
Click to expand...

I've blown a few notes on one but I'm not sure it could be called playing. It was made by Gregus Pal who makes tárogatós and is the only "bass" tárogató maker I know of.
 
There was one on Ebay in the UK 2 or 3 years ago went for only about £400, if I remember correctly, but it was high pitch so useless for playing other than solo.
 
So, it sounds like a Taragato crossed with an oboe. Hmm.

Thanks very much for the video. One of the reasons I like it is because I've always wondered how to actually play one. The bell is right next to the mouthpiece, after all.
 
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