Blessing Vintage 1977 Alpha BK Professional Trumpet in Excellent Condition

Emil Karl Blessing immigrated to Elkhart, Indiana from Germany where he had learned to make musical instruments. In the late 1890s he began working for the Buescher company specializing in improving their piston valve design. In 1903 he moved to Chicago to work for Holton and in 1907 he began his own small company working out of his home, intending to make fine professional horns. Unfortunately, despite that Blessing has always made fine professional trumpets, often for sale for less than those made by the big companies like Conn and Holton, Blessing was never able to compete with those companies in the professional trumpet market. It's been written that marketing professional trumpets has a similar follow-the-leader sales success tradition as has the sales of sports equipment in that it's professional player endorsements more than anything else that promote professional trumpet sales. Blessing, always being a small underfunded company, could never afford to pay pro trumpet players for endorsements. Blessing however always did well competing with the large companies with their well-made student horns. I think it always bothered Emil that his company could never compete with the bigger companies in the professional horn market knowing the high construction standards he set for his professional horns, which is too bad because every Blessing pro horn I've played I've found to be well-designed, and well-made.

The Blessing Alpha BK was Blessing's flagship professional trumpet in the 1970's. It's noted for having great valve action, fine slotting, and good intonation. This Alpha BK, #255307, from 1977 is in excellent condition with no dents and just a few pings here and there too small to show up in the photos. From the last photo you can see that all the slides are free and the valve plating still looks new. It has a first slide lever to make intonation even easier, and don't forget the company motto... "It's A Blessing."

Comes with the original Blessing case shown in the photos in very good condition and a mouthpiece.

Key:  Bb
Bore: . 459"
Bell:  4 3/4"
Non-reverse lead tube

Please check out the other horns listed from my collection by clicking on Gabriel's Trumpets in blue above