I got my tuba today. Man, is the bell messed up. Of course, I was expecting that - but wow... just wow. They really beat the crap out of the poor thing.

Oh well - I spent about 10 minutes manually bending the bell back into the rough shape. I mean, really... it only took ten minutes to straighten it by hand into something a whole lot closer to 'normal' - WTF is wrong with people?! Have a little pride - it's a Besson after all (they're not cheap OR inexpensive, by any means).

There's all sorts of other damage on the horn, but none of it looks like anything critical. There are some dings just about everywhere on the horn, but the slides pull, the valves cycle (will need some cleaning and oil), and need to score a mouthpiece before I can even play it.

Bottom line: a great buy. I've already spent ten minutes repairing the horn and it looks a ton better (I'll get "before" pics when I get serious about rolling out the dents). Just gotta get a mouthpiece then... game on.