Chiff and Fipple Forums

I noticed someone has a Bb Sindt for sale on Ebay. Why are Jon Sindt whistles considered so rare and valuable? I understand the value since I owe a full range of these whistles. Is Jon no longer making Whistles?

Just asking.

He is making whistles. He's not cranking them out for mass sale, but you can email him and ask for a whistle to be made. He made me an "A" whistle last September. it took a few months. Great whistle

It is a matter of perspective. I suppose the seller is thinking they don't come up in the used context very often. It is true that you can get one made. I don't know what the waiting list is now days. I have one and enjoy it. I also bought a set for my son with a Bb and an A body. Both were purchased used on C&F and purchased over a period of a 3 or 4 years. So "rare" to this seller may mean you can't pick it up off the shelf or find stacks of them on a website somewhere.

Folks in the high end flute and whistle may think of rare as something not seen for sale in several years, with a maker with a waiting list over a few years or possibly deceased. But we are rare birds ourselves.

I saw the post and thought it odd tbh...seller says that it is extremely rare in this key Bb....I don't think a Sindt Bb is rare at all...let alone extremely rare...was probably only played by a little old organ lady, once per year at Christmas eve Church service as well... Good selling feature I suppose.

If a seller says something is 'rare', they are just trying to hike up the price.

Yeah, I'm also in the 'old computers' crowd, and ebay is full or 'RARE!', except for the cases where it's 'ULTRA RARE', never mind the actual rareness..

A facebook-friend of mine just bought a Sindt in Bb. He said, he didn't even have to wait as Mr Sindt had one in stock. So much for rarity. However, John Sindt is 87 now ... so who knows how long he will keep making whistles.

Yes the seller was gilding the lily a bit.

I bought a used Sindt A/Bb/B set (three tubes one head) here in the Used Instrument Exchange and no doubt it was excellent, the Bb being the best of the three, a quite exceptional whistle.

That seller's hyperbole doesn't compare to the nonsense people post on Ebay, especially about worthless tatty 1970s Pakistani bagpipes, which were invariably "recovered from a WWI battlefield" or "were played in the Boar War" (sic).

At the end of WWI there must have been hundreds of 1970s Pakistani bagpipes littered about the former battlefields. You couldn't walk about without stepping on the things.

While we're at it -- Richard, how would you say a 2018 Killarney compares to a Sindt? Would it be worth trying to contact Mr Sindt and get on the waiting list? I'm seriously considering that.

Do Sindts in all keys have the difficult OXX OOO? Meaning, Sindt players must be good half-holers which I am not.
Off Topic:
Regarding bagpipes from Pakistan, I bought a new set in 1974 for $125 at a store in New York City. Within two weeks, there were huge cracks in two of the drones at the base. It never even made it out of the trenches. The store exchanged it for another set, which didn't crack so I sold it after a year at a $25 profit which went towards the purchase of a $325 set of Hardies.

Quality whistles always.

Tyler DelGregg wrote:Do Sindts in all keys have the difficult OXX OOO? Meaning, Sindt players must be good half-holers which I am not.
Off Topic:
Regarding bagpipes from Pakistan, I bought a new set in 1974 for $125 at a store in New York City. Within two weeks, there were huge cracks in two of the drones at the base. It never even made it out of the trenches. The store exchanged it for another set, which didn't crack so I sold it after a year at a $25 profit which went towards the purchase of a $325 set of Hardies.

Peccavi

Seán.

Peccatum maximum

'Peccavi'

The most brief and brilliant example of a favourite British form of humour, the pun. In 1843 Sir Charles Napier conquered the Indian province of Sind (now southeast Pakistan), and was criticized in parliament in 1844 for his ruthless campaign. A girl in her teens, Catherine Winkworth (1827–78), remarked to her teacher that Napier's despatch to the governor general of India, after capturing Sind, should have been Peccavi (Latin for 'I have sinned'). She sent her joke to the new humorous magazine Punch, which printed it as a factual report under Foreign Affairs. As a result the pun has usually been credited to Napier.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BRITAIN

I absolutely love my Sindt whistles and I honor him as a master whistle maker.