King Harry James Trumpet

Our understanding is that there were only 30 of these gold-plated trumpets made, none of which was  available to the public. The instrument has no first or third valve tuning mechanism and is 'balanced', meaning that the valve section is in the center of the instrument.

Harry switched to this custom trumpet in 1954. It is a dual bore with a medium large .460" bore going into the main tuning slide and a huge .472" bore in the valve section.

For those who don't know his name, Harry James was a musician whose career started at age three on drums before switching to trumpet. At age 20 he became an instant sensation with the popular Beny Goodman band. After forming his own band he had a number of hit records in the 1940's.

He was known to many World War II G.I.s as the husband of blonde pinup girl and movie star Betty Grable.

This instrument is part of our museum collection and is NOT for sale.