Western European
Possibly Germany

Brass
ca. 1820’s
Length: 12 inches
Wind Instruments – Brasswinds – Cornets/Cornopeans

This two-valve cornopean has an engraved silver plate on front: A.J. Rice, with Eagle. Each shank/crooks has same silver plate with key, i.e., Ab, etc. In excellent condition, all original with no repairs.  Includes original mouthpiece.

Around 1814, Heinrich Stölzel built a two-valve chromatic horn, but it was not until 1818, that Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel patented the design of added valves to a horn. This is a four-piece, two- Stölzel valve Cornopean with ivory touch caps. It has a double-loop brass body and several shanks/crooks. This model of valves lowers the pitch a whole tone (first valve) and a semitone (second valve). The spring is enclosed in the barrel at the top. Unique to the Stölzel valves is that the main tubing enters the piston from below, unlike the Périnet valves by François Périnet (patented in 1838) and the Berlin valves (developed in Berlin both in 1827 by Heinrich Stölzel and independently in 1833 by Wilhelm Wieprecht). Playing a chromatic scale was only possible if one hand-stopped the bell, so the 2-valve instrument was short lived and the much needed third valve was soon added.

Resources: http://www.blackdiamondbrass.com/tpthist/trpthist.htm; http://www.usd.edu/smm/UtleyPages/Utleyfaq/brassfaqBerlin.html http://www.usd.edu/smm/UtleyPages/Utleyfaq/brassfaqStoelzel.html#earlyStoelzel