[JohnMarkPainter]

So....I just had my Bari set up.
When the tech opened the case, a garter snake crawled out of the horn!

The only thing I can think of is that my son had just moved some boxes in from the garage and they were near my Sax stands.
Imagine if a snake crawled out of a Tone hole while you were playing

I try to do the pull through swabs on my Bari but it is a nuisance.
We have Brown Recluse spiders where I live so I have to watch out for that

 

[frozen fingers]

Yikes! I've yet to find any treasures in my instruments, living or not. I'd likely need some counselling if a snake crawled out of one of my cases or horns. Of course, the snake would be a good deterrent for brown recluse spiders...

 

[nvilletele]

After I had flown back to Tokyo from the US, when unpacking our baby stroller, which had gone with our luggage, a snake crawled out of the storage area underneath the seat. Always worried I had inadvertently introduced a new species to the country.

But with only one of them, it probably couldn’t do much harm. Unless maybe it was pregnant.

(Closest I got. Sorry.)

 

[JayeLID]

It wouldn't be defined as weird, but....I did buy a neckless vintage Keilwerth baritone once on eBay, went for a song on auction, since it had no neck and needed an overhaul.

Lo and behold, while disassembling it for a chem bath...I found the neck wedged into the lower bow. One could not see it looking down the bell, and with the keys on it was also not particularly visible....

Second would be... I found a wad of foreign money in a tenor neck once. It was like 200 of whatever the currency was.

I was initially stoked, until someone recognized it as being of a country formerly in USSR.... and worth around $5.00us....

 

[Grumps]

Weirdest thing I ever found in a horn?
My soul...

 

[JayeLID]

Weirdest thing I ever found in a horn?
My soul...

Wait a minute. I distinctly remember you once saying:

"horns don't have souls".

 

[BH9]

Hash pipe and a pair of black silk panties.

 

[lostcircuits]

I found a golfball in a Conn shooting star alto, it was wedged into the body and the horn was considered unplayable/broken at a garage sale
And a mouthpiece in the body of a Jupiter alto in a pawnshop but I was too honest and showed them and then they jacked up the price
And a reed holder and some paper towels in my Martin c-mel

Thank god, no dead rodents, but of course, I don't know what might be lurking inside the goose necks of my baris / bass

 

[saxoclese]

This is not weird, but when I taught junior high band we had a bari sax that we couldn't use because it didn't have a mouthpiece. I finally bought an expensive high quality bari piece at a local music store and gave the sax a play test. It wouldn't play at all. Upon closer inspection there was a mouthpiece wedged tightly in the upper part of the body tube. After removing some keys and working the mouthpiece loose through the toneholes I got it out. When put back together the sax played great and we got a new "doorstop" to boot.

 

[Hornlip]

Found a clip-on bow tie stuck high in the body of an Aristocrat tenor, once. Beat, gigged-to-death horn with a lot of gig-gear in the case.

Found what turned out to be a large lump of shellac in a Conn C-melody neck. Jammed in there like somebody melted it into place. Maybe they were trying to disarm the horn, like spiking a cannon.

 

[lostcircuits]

This is not weird, but when I taught junior high band we had a bari sax that we couldn't use because it didn't have a mouthpiece. I finally bought an expensive high quality bari piece at a local music store and gave the sax a play test. It wouldn't play at all. Upon closer inspection there was a mouthpiece wedged tightly in the upper part of the body tube. After removing some keys and working the mouthpiece loose through the toneholes I got it out. When put back together the sax played great and we got a new "doorstop" to boot.

I agree, I have seen this a few times, especially in pawnshops where people drop off things they found in the attic of a relative. It's always the first thing I check before I even put the neck on but with a bari, like you mention, it can get tricky to find anything in the body.

 

[Sacks Of Phones]

Hash pipe and a pair of black silk panties.

Did the panties fit?.....................oops, wrong forum................

 

[Grumps]

Wait a minute. I distinctly remember you once saying:

"horns don't have souls".

Exactly. It was my soul; as stated.

 

[JayeLID]

Did the panties fit?.....................oops, wrong forum................

No, it's the right Forum.....

 

[adamk]

Went to a junior college decades ago and played bari in the big band.
They had a New Yamaha 52, very nice.
They wouldn't let me take it home to practice but had an old low Bb Buescher.
I could't get a note out of it and told the teacher.
He sent it to a tech who found a mummy mouse stopping the sound in the last curve before the neck.
He soaked it out then "sanitized". I didn't try it just stayed after school and practiced the Yamaha.
I wouldn't be so squeamish now.

 

[frozen fingers]

Hash pipe and a pair of black silk panties.

Haha I'm working from home, so on my lunch break I'll be taking a double look through all my instrument cases...

 

[greatlakeswinds]

Not really weird, but I had a Buescher TT that I had picked up for maybe $150 about 15 years ago. It needed more work than I expected, so it sat around for a couple years before I did anything with it. When I finally started to work on it, I noticed there was something lodged in the body tube. Turned out to be a rare Jim Simpson mouthpiece. I put it on ebay and sold it within a couple hours for $500! Now I always look down the body as soon as I get a horn in. Found many more mouthpieces, ligatures, caps, and cork grease canisters, but nothing else of any real value. Still waiting for the day a slant sig Link pops out of a Bundy, lol.

 

[Martin Williams]

Got a nice Berg 120/0/M tenor piece out of the body of a Selmer Mark VII once.

I have also had a mouse, water bottles and all kinds of miscellaneous, in the tuba, super glue in a cornet and who knows what else. I don't remember it all!

 

[Hassles]

Hash pipe and a pair of black silk panties.

lies lies lies - you're just dreamin' ;-)

 

[whaler]

When I worked at a music store years ago a band teacher brought a trumpet in he said was clogged. The repair guy at the shop started banging on it with his leather mallet and out falls an unexpended 45 shell.
Did I mention it was a rough school?
One of the funniest things that happened was a middle school students mom brought in a trumpet with the bell bent. She did he was trying to make it look like Dizzy Gillespies trumpet. It was amess but the only thing we thought was at least the kid knew who Dizzy was.