In 1908, C. G. Conn created a family of instruments that he called "Wonderphone," where the basses and baritones now featured his newly patented bell-forward design (and, interestingly, nothing was said at that time about the benefit of this design for recording purposes, as per this post):
Conn's Sousaphone, with its upright bell, was by that time a fixture in many bands, having been introduced ten years earlier (1898, with J. W. Pepper having created the very first Sousaphone in 1895), and featured as the centerpiece of Sousa's bass section for that entire time (shown here in 1907, played by Jack Richardson):
Bringing the bell forward on that classic shoulder-borne bass would prove to be revolutionary, with that configuration ultimately overtaking the original Sousaphone design in less than twenty years, with Conn ceasing production on the original bell-up version in 1926.
But the new bass horn wasn't called a "Sousaphone" at first, as that name was already taken. Instead, it was introduced as "The Helicon BBb Bass Wonderphone":
That name, or a variation of it ("Wonderphone Helicon"), seems to have stuck until 1914, when Conn began referring to the instrument as a "Sousaphone Grand" model. Here are the relevant pages from Conn's Band and Instrument catalogs in 1913 and 1914, where the change in name is observed (images are courtesy of Mark Overton's fabulous collection, posted at saxophone.org):
The name "Sousaphone Grand" appears to have been used at least through the 1940s, in reference to the popular 38K and (eventually) 20K models. But around 1930, there appeared in Conn's catalog a new "Lightweight Sousaphone," with the model number 32K, that did not include the "Grand" designation (this horn appears to have been the predecessor to the 14K, but I haven't checked that out yet).
At some point - apparently around the early 1950s - "Grand" was quietly dropped, and Conn Sousaphones were simply referred to as "Sousaphones."
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