Ormiston Rosewood Flute on Ebay

chas · Post by **chas** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 12:40 pm

glauber wrote: Chris Norman's organization is called Boxwood. His famous "wooden flute" is a Rudall made of boxwood, but the flute he plays now is a copy of that old flute made by Rod Cameron in... blackwood!

Both times I've seen Chris (both with the Baltimore Consort, I think 3 and 5 years ago) he's played at least four different flutes. Most were definitely boxwood, one or two possibly not. And they didn't all produce that distinctive tone of his -- some of them were downright grating, so much wind and buzzing that I was almost looking for spittle in the blowby.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 5:06 pm

I heard chris norman play a blackwood flute
from three feet away, and it sounded like
an oboe. So there! Thanks to all.

Ronbo · Post by **Ronbo** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 7:52 pm

How do you play a flute from three feet away? Long lips?

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 8:47 pm

Oh god, a structural ambiguity!

On one occasion at a meeting
of the American Philosophical Association,
the philosopher, John Searle,
decided he would solve my career problems
by getting me a job. He led me over to
the Princeton table at the smoker and announced:
'This is Jim Stone, the best unemployed
philosopher in America!'

They smiled knowingly.

'Are you saying, John, that he is
the philosopher in America best unemployed?'

P.S. Chris hasn't so much long lips
as one hell of an embouchure.

BMFW · Post by **BMFW** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:00 am

Back on topic, I see the seller has ended the auction a day or so early with only a £180 bid on the table. I wasn't particularly interested in the flute but now I'm really curious to know what happened.

I know that most Ebay veterans keep their bidding until the last few hours but to have only received such a low bid must have been a bit worrying for the seller.

Ormistons do seem to be one of the makes that struggle to hold their value, even with an 8 month waiting list on new flutes. And perhaps, as mentioned previously, rosewood is an issue for potential buyers. Who knows, perhaps someone e-mailed the seller and made an offer good enough to end the auction - anyone on here? (Not that I'm outrageously nosey or anything

)

Shame, at £180 I might have given it a shot because a man can never have too many flutes

Cheers

Graham

Eldarion · Post by **Eldarion** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 2:48 am

chas wrote:Most were definitely boxwood, one or two possibly not. And they didn't all produce that distinctive tone of his -- some of them were downright grating, so much wind and buzzing that I was almost looking for spittle in the blowby.

I was wondering though, if a deliberate change in his mouth embouchure could be more responsible for the difference in tone than the switching of flutes? I've never heard Chris Norman "live" but changing embouchures to produce drastically different tones is surely well within his abilities. Even on the same flute, players with skillful enough embouchures will be able to extract drastically different timbres.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 6:51 am

BMFW wrote:Back on topic, I see the seller has ended the auction a day or so early with only a £180 bid on the table. I wasn't particularly interested in the flute but now I'm really curious to know what happened. I know that most Ebay veterans keep their bidding until the last few hours but to have only received such a low bid must have been a bit worrying for the seller.

It says she ended it because the item was lost or broken. I wonder if that really happened (what a shame!), or if that was just an excuse for ending it early......

Steven

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 7:01 am

I really wonder about the early finish as well. It could well be that the seller was really put off by the lack of bidding. Can't really blame him/her, really; though, this might have been better as a reserve auction . . . or an auction in which the bidding started at the ACTUAL lowest price the seller would take.

Which reminds me . . . why on earth do people do reserve auctions and tell people the reserve? What's up with that? You see so many auction announcements here on C&F in which people say, "I'm selling my Copeland Fb sterling silver whistle, bidding starts at $0 and my reserve is low ($289.99), so please check it out!" Or even in the description of the item on eBay! Just start the stupid bidding at $289.99.

Stop soapbox.

Stuart

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 7:15 am

I've never grasped what's happening on e bay.
I wish people would simply offer the instruments
here!

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:12 am

sturob wrote:I really wonder about the early finish as well. It could well be that the seller was really put off by the lack of bidding. Can't really blame him/her, really; though, this might have been better as a reserve auction . . . or an auction in which the bidding started at the ACTUAL lowest price the seller would take.

I never bid until the last few minutes, why bother driving the price up?

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:18 am

Yeah, but I just mean that in a non-reserve auction with a low start price, and an inexperienced seller . . . I'm sure the seller didn't want to take the chance that the flute would go for £200 or something.

eBay used improperly.

Stuart

MacEachain · Post by **MacEachain** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:46 am

Hi Folks,
It was a reserve auction, there was one bid of £180, reserve not met.

Cheers, Mac

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 9:14 am

jim stone wrote:I've never grasped what's happening on e bay.
I wish people would simply offer the instruments
here!

Bottom line: Selling on ebay brings in more money for the seller, they offering here, although many of us have done so. I can't tell you how many times I've offered instruments on C&F, gotten no takers, then put the item on ebay and end selling for more than I was asking here. I've had a number of C&F'ers end up bidding MORE on Ebay than I was asking on C&F. After the auction many would write to me and say "Geeze, I wish I had bought that when you first offered it on the message board."

I think many folks here are so fixated on getting a bargain that they refuse to pay what an item is "worth" on the open market, which is fair enough, just don't complain when people quit bothering with posting things here. (That last not directed at you Jim, just a general statement.)

Loren

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 4:29 pm

And there is more to it than that. EBay adds a third party, with some measure of security in that there is recourse for deals gone bad.

I'm not saying that everyone on C&F isn't 100% trustworthy, but when you're buying something that expensive, there's some risk involved.

Most of us don't really "know" one another: we just know each other's C&F personae.

Stuart

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 8:51 pm

I really don't understand what's going on
there, not even the nuts and bolts.
The one time I bid on a flute, everybody
else did too at the last minute,
and the price went through the
ceiling. Then ebay sent me spam for
months. This isn't meant as a criticism
of ebay. I just won't go near stuff
sold there, feel like a babe in the
woods.