Me too. It looks a little like wood grain (slab cut cathedral).

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I’d buy a garish one. No need to pretend something is an old relic when it isn’t!

Serously, if the flute was a decent instrument and the price wasn’t too silly, then I’d bite yer hand off.

Nice looking! Like them both

I like them both. The black & green work very well.

One possibly useful feature; each flute must look totally unique. If it was stolen & you saw it in a pawn shop or posted on eBay you'd recognise it immediately & be able to provide photographic proof it was yours.

Very true! No two pieces of colored ebonite are exactly alike.

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Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

I like the smokey one. Very nice. The green one isn't bad, but my conservative tastes in traditional instruments would steer me to the smokey one. The gray swirl coordinates well with the black background and silver rings.

Both look absolutely fabulous to my eye. The grey is more restrained, but the green is scarcely garish.

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Yes, I would call the green "striking" rather than "garish"

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Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

When I said I wanted a garish one I was thinking more in line with the first pic at the beginning of the thread. That’s the sort of thing that would make me part with my hard earned spondulicks.

Now with that first flute, I'd have to agree that "garish" is the mot juste While the color did grow on me, I can't deny that it gave me a bit of vertigo when I first saw it. Not everyone's cup of tea!

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Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

There's something about the colored ebonite that reminds me of bowling balls from the 50s and 60s abut also old pipes. My dad smoked a pipe and some of them had ebonite stems.

Is there an upcharge for colored ebonite?

I cannot say enough good about my Ellis ebonite Pratten, especially now that I can actually play music on it. I've made a bunch of breakthroughs and can now make actual music on the flute, which is such a free blowing and expressive instrument.

I have a hard time seeing myself explaining to my wife "but look, this one is black and green!"

I do charge significantly more for the colored ebonite for a couple of reasons. First, it is a lot more expensive than the black ebonite (about twice as much). Second, there is a lot more pressure not to make a mistake! With black ebonite (as with African blackwood), you can mix and match pieces, and if something goes screwy on a section, you can easily replace it with another piece of black ebonite. A flute made from the colored stuff needs to all come from the same piece of ebonite so that it matches, and this means that a mistake is pretty much fatal to the entire flute since there is no hope of an exact match on a replacement piece, and any such error is also very expensive. So the stress level in working with it is quite high and I have to move with greater care. That comes out in the price. And finishing ebonite is much more labor intensive than wood. Takes several times as long, easily.

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Geoffrey Ellis Flutes

I did see is garish when I open the package
but I quickly liked it.

and this week, I think the colors is city flower of Hong Kong

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhini ... 7_blakeana

unexpected fate....

Best of luck to Hong Kong!