Jul 6, 2018 - 13 rare animals that are teetering on the brink of extinction. To the wild — have helped bring the animals back from the brink of extinction. As the only Asian rhino with two horns, the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus. In July 2011, a man from Oklahoma broke the Antiques Roadshow record with his collection of Chinese cups carved from rhinoceros horns. His collection dates back to the 18th century, and was.
$30M U.S. dollar bill collection: The world’s most valuable
When $76,000 in cash is really worth $30 million; take a look at the rarest, most valuable U.S. print money collection ever assembled, dating back to early 19th century.
The world’s rarest, most valued print money collection ever assembled goes up for auction next week in Baltimore, Maryland and while the pile of cash is only worth $76,000 on paper, it’s expected to draw upwards of $30 million.
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“A lot of bills the U.S. government doesn’t even have a copy of them,” Vicken Yegparian, vice president of numismatics at Stack’s Bowers Galleries, the firm holding the auction, tells FOX Business.
The 240-piece collection was assembled by Joel R. Anderson and contains a number of historical notes from 1812 to 1923, with many of them worth several millions each.
“A lot of them are large-sized bank notes which started in the 1860s, when the U.S. government really got involved in the currency business in a big way because of the civil war going on, and they needed to finance that and they were scrambling to figure out a way,” Yegparian says.
One of the most expensive bills is a 1891 $1,000 Silver Certificate “Mercy” Note, which is sometimes consider the “unicorn” of United States paper money, and it is estimated to draw $1.75 million to $2.25 million because there are only two of them left in the world.
Anderson, who has been collecting notes for several decades, decided to sell his collection after reaching his goal of acquiring one of every major lines of money ever produced by the U.S. government.
“I think for him a lot of it was about the thrill of the hunt at first and then you hit this brick wall when you can’t add to it and you say maybe it’s time to sell,” Yegparian says.
The notes will now be broken apart in a series of three auctions this year, with the first one next week in Baltimore, followed by one in Philadelphia in the summer, and the last one back in Baltimore in November.
Yegparian says the auctions will draw a lot of long-time collectors that started when they were kids as well as a lot of overseas collectors who are interested in old U.S. bills.
“In China, we have to open a Hong Kong office to crater to the demand of Chinese collectors in recent years,” he says.
Brass instruments in the West have evolved throughout history into what we recognise today. Trumpets, cornets, horns, trombones and tubas are ubiquitous, appearing in practically every genre of Western music in one form or another. But what about the more unusual ones? In the Darwinian fight for survival, certain older designs have fallen by the wayside, replaced by louder, more efficient, easier to play or simply more wieldy instruments. Others have never been mass produced, used only by the players who invented them. Here is my list of the top 5 unusual and rare brass instruments:
Sackbut
The Sackbut (no sniggering at the name please) is a predecessor to the modern trombone that was popular throughout the Renaissance and Baroque eras, up until the 1700s. Modern Sackbut replicas are used in period accurate performances of works from this time. The instrument had a smaller bore size and less-flared bell than a modern trombone and was produced in alto, tenor, bass and double bass varieties.
Serpent
A distant ancestor of the modern Tuba, this bizarre looking instrument gets its name from its distinctive snake-like shape. Although the instrument was generally made from wood and covered with leather, it is considered a brass instrument due to the style of mouthpiece used. To change pitch, the serpent uses a series of fingerholes and keys. Playing one is no mean feat as certain notes require the player to override the natural pitch produced by some of the finger combinations.
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Piccolo Trombone
When you think of the trombone, you probably have an image of a fairly large instrument in your mind. While it is true that tenor and bass trombones are the most common, several sizes of trombone exist.
The next smallest trombone after the tenor is the alto, pitched in the key of Eb. While rarer than its tenor cousin, the alto trombone can still be found in many works from the classical period through to modern period. The pBone Mini is an example of an alto trombone.
Smaller still is the soprano trombone. Pitched in Bb in the same register as the trumpet, the soprano is notoriously difficult to play in tune. Repertoire is unsurprisingly rare for the instrument though jazz trumpet and trombone players have been known to adopt it due its superior ability to glissando between notes.
Jazz trombonist Wycliffe Gordon plays a mean soprano trombone:
Finally, at the most ridiculous end of the trombone register is the piccolo. These instruments are extremely rare but they do appear in some trombone choir repertoire. Standard piccolo trombones are pitched in Bb an octave higher than soprano trombones while the similar Eb sopranino resides an octave above the alto. And they look adorable. So cute.
Firebird Trumpet
This strange-looking instrument was developed by Holton in conjunction with Maynard Ferguson. It gives the player the option to play using either valves or a trombone-like slide. In order to keep the tubing the correct length for the instrument to be in Bb, the slide could only be made with four positions instead of the standard 7 on trombone. Since the original Firebird was first built in the late 1970s, the instrument’s maker Larry Ramirez has developed a way to make a fully functioning 7 position version. Don’t go rushing out to buy one though- only two models have ever been made!
Fluba
The Fluba is an invention of freelance musician Jim Self. Essentially a tuba sized flugelhorn, the Fluba is a one-of-a-kind instrument that Self says sounds different from both the tuba and the similar contrabass trumpet.
Honourable Mention: Tromboon
Invented by Peter Schickele’s creation, fictional spoof composer P. D. Q Bach, this instrument combines the reed and bocal of a bassoon with a trombone body resulting in an unusual and comical sound. The Tromboon could technically be considered a woodwind as the sound is produced using a reed and it’s also dubious whether it can be considered a legitimate instrument, but it was too amusing not to share it on this list.
Check out our range of brass instruments by clicking here!