Like its 6D predecessor, the 8D was not a brand new design but borrowed from other popular horn makers.

In 1937-38, Conn debuted the 8D, what is to this day America’s best-selling horn model.

This second iteration of the 6D became widely popular and is still manufactured today. This “Stagliagno” 6D ditched the Schmidt-inspired piston valve in favor of a 4th rotor value to change between F and Bb horns. In 1934, Conn introduced a new 6D model in collaboration with then principal horn of the NY Philharmonic, James Stagliagno. The Schmidt design includes rotary values for the three main slides and a piston to change between F and Bb horns. Schmidt horn, according to The Conn Loyalist. Marketed at a professional level, it was a “favorite with second and fourth horn players because they say only on the F can the true French horn quality of tone be obtained,” according to Conn.Ĭonn’s first double horn, the 6D “Schmidt” model, was produced in roughly 1919 and was an approximate copy of the popular German-made C. The 4D was also a single horn with F, Eb and D slides. Production ended in 1929 when the rotary value 4D was introduced. The first Conn French horns were produced in about 1913, including a “low pitch” piston valve model called the 2D and a corresponding “high pitch” 3D model, both single horns complete with tuning slides in F, Eb and D. While Conn, now part of Conn-Selmer company, has undergone many ownership changes, its key French horn models, the 6D and 8D, are still widely used today. Standard mouthpieces caused him too much discomfort, so he invented a rubber rim in 1875 he called “an elastic face.” This entrepreneurial acumen quickly extended to a full range of band instruments, business partnerships and a series of factories (several destroyed by fires) in Elkhart Indiana. Charles Gerard Conn, a cornet-playing civil war veteran born in 1844, was inspired to enter the instrument business after a lip injury - allegedly resulting from a bar brawl.

Conn french horn models