Photograph of John Frank Reavis playing his trombone. 26-year-old Reavis is now on trial for the murder of 17-year-old B-girl Alice "Jerry" Burns. Reavis confessed to the murder but said that he was in a blind rage when he did it and didn’t know what he was doing. Reavis received a second-degree sentence of five years to life in San Quentin.
F. E. Olds was a manufacturer of musical instruments founded by Frank Ellsworth Olds in Los Angeles, in the early 1900s. The company made brass instruments, especially trombones, cornets, and trumpets. Olds was joined by his son Reginald Birdsall (R.B.) Olds in 1920. The company was purchased by Chicago Musical Instruments after World War II, and went out of business in 1979.
Advertisement photograph of an F. E. Olds Military trombone with a hammered finished bell. This line was introduced in about 1933. Engraving visible near the bell includes an American bald eagle above "Olds" and "Military."