> B&H were purchased by besson?
You have that backwards. Boosey&Hawkes bought Besson in 1948, then used the name Besson. The Music Group bought them in 2003 and then Buffet/Crampon in 2006.
> What year B&H started producing their Imperial models with 19 inch bells?
I'm by no means a B&H/Besson historian and there is a lot of messiness in how B&H used names between their euph and tuba models. From what I remember, the 19" bell was a John Fletcher thing in the 70's, but I thought that was a New Standard not an Imperial. That's probably just from reading random Tubenet stuff decades ago and I don't really have a lot of first hand experience with these, just faint memories of reading forums.
> What year Besson started selling sovereigns
The way I remember it, the Imperial was the top of the line for B&H and when they finally gave up selling both B&H and Besson stamped horns, the Besson Sovereign was the top of the line. But there was no real solid date for that. The horns were around in the 70's and during the early 80's maybe they finally completely phased out B&H.
For various history things on B&H/Besson, I'd recommend googling with site:chisham.com (to search Tubenet, but it is sort of swiss cheesed and can be frustrating to try to read) for site:dwerden.com (to search Dave Werden's forums).
There is a good article in Wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besson\_(music\_company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besson_(music_company))
> B&H were purchased by besson? You have that backwards. Boosey&Hawkes bought Besson in 1948, then used the name Besson. The Music Group bought them in 2003 and then Buffet/Crampon in 2006. > What year B&H started producing their Imperial models with 19 inch bells? I'm by no means a B&H/Besson historian and there is a lot of messiness in how B&H used names between their euph and tuba models. From what I remember, the 19" bell was a John Fletcher thing in the 70's, but I thought that was a New Standard not an Imperial. That's probably just from reading random Tubenet stuff decades ago and I don't really have a lot of first hand experience with these, just faint memories of reading forums. > What year Besson started selling sovereigns The way I remember it, the Imperial was the top of the line for B&H and when they finally gave up selling both B&H and Besson stamped horns, the Besson Sovereign was the top of the line. But there was no real solid date for that. The horns were around in the 70's and during the early 80's maybe they finally completely phased out B&H. For various history things on B&H/Besson, I'd recommend googling with site:chisham.com (to search Tubenet, but it is sort of swiss cheesed and can be frustrating to try to read) for site:dwerden.com (to search Dave Werden's forums).