In the December 11, 1897 edition of The Music Trade Review, the following front page notice appears:
What exactly was that "immense big tuba or helicon in the window" that a uniformed bandsman was "manipulating"? I'm guessing it was this, or something like this:
Here's additional information later on in that same edition of The Review (p. 27):
Notice that it says, "In the window, at present, is a monster brass Helicon with a forty inch bell and weighing sixty-three pounds." That about matches what we can see in the photo above!
And here is a photograph of the Conn facility at 23 East Fourteenth street, in NYC, about a year later. Presumably, that main front window is where the huge helicon was displayed:
The "monster brass Helicon" was one of two huge horns built by C. G. Conn in 1897, which I'm guessing served as the prelude to Conn's first Sousaphone, which was introduced to the world a month later (January 1898). You can read more about that here.
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