Picked up my trumpet today

After 4 years of sitting in its case. I tried playing through a few scales and lip slurs and whatnot...man, I have some work ahead of me. I'm hoping it won't be long before I regain the mouth control and start making some good sounds again. I played in the school band from 5th grade to 8th grade and didn't stick with it in high school because I was tired of playing school band songs...I wish I had kept playing it on my own, though.

But I'm taking a semester off before going to college and figured I might as well pull it out to kill some time during the day while all my buddies are in school. I'm actually thinking of getting a few people together for some sort of jazz/swing quartet...could be fun.

Now for some quick questions...

Aside from greasing the slides and oiling the valves, is there anything else I should do to it since it's been sitting around for 4 years? It's a Bach student model, by the way.

And I have an old Tokan trumpet that my mom got for a few bucks at a garage sale about 10 years ago, would it be worth fixing up? Cosmetically, it's pretty tarnished, but it isn't bent or dented. Most of the slides are stuck, but I got the tuning slide to start moving again today. The valves probably need some work, too. The estimate we got from one of the local music stores 7 years ago was $150 to fix it.

Anyways, I'm having a blast playing around with it again. You'll probably see me hanging around here a lot more now.

One of the first things I would do is take all the slides, valves, and other detachable parts off. Take the main body of the trumpet, and put it in a tub of lukewarm water with some dish soap. Use a trumpet snake or similar, and really give the leadpipe and valve casing a good washing. Don't be surprised if your water turns a not-so-pleasant color!

Do the same thing with the slides. You can use a sink for the slides, usually. Use either the snake or a mouthpiece brush and get some of that gunk out of them. For the valves, make sure nothing is stuck on the outside and clean out the holes in them with one of your brushes. I don't submerge my valves; the felts on them tend not to appreciate that.

After all that, I usually get out a towel and let everything air dry. I put a fan on them to speed up the process. Once this is done, oil the valves, grease the slides, and it'll practically be a new horn!

I've never heard of Tokan trumpets. If you think it might be a good player, $150 isn't a bad price for a complete overhaul. If its probably something better left to hang on the wall, I'd run some water through it and hang it up.

I'd save the $150, stay with your Bach, find a teacher and spend that money on 6-8 lessons (1/2 hr. will probably run $18-25). That money is more valuable spent on making sure you have a good embouchure and pointing you in the right direction with exercises to get playing again.