Snap, Rick! (Well almost but not quite).
Here is the link to photos of my set:-
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=6bfb14864770c230&sc=photos&Bsrc=Photomail&Bpub=SDX.Photos&id=6BFB14864770C230!134&sff=1#cid=6BFB14864770C230&id=6BFB14864770C230!134
The bodies are the same except for the bass slide. Mine is a replacement except for the ivory puck. I’m wondering if the ebony puck on Rick’s is an original. The chanters are different of course. Mine has the long wood key blocks instead of ribbon keys. The Fnat key is missing. Mine has only one bit of ivory and the stop key is a different shape. My back d hole is a bit unusual (I think):- quite big and is an oval shape.
This is the same set that Sean saw in Ireland many years ago being played by Finbar Furey. I would be interested to find out more about the NY Crowleys if anyone has got any info.
Hi Driftwood.
Thanks for sharing. Yes your set is nearly identical to mine. Very cool.
Interesting that this now makes three nearly identical sets - yours, mine and Kevin’s old set, which he says is now in possession of a piper in Houston.
I’m not sure about the bass drone puck on my set, and whether it is original. Perhaps Sean knows?
Rick
To add a bit more detail to this thread, here are a few photos of another of this ‘family’ of sets. This is the one that formerly belonged to Kevin, which he mentioned earlier in this thread. It is now owned by Chiff member pudinka, who emailed me these photos today and asked me to post them.
The set is very similar to those owned by myself and by Driftwood, although this particular set has ivory mounts on the regs. As with my set, this one was also restored by Brad Angus, who I am told made a new bass drone and replaced the sliding part of the bari drone, as well as the chanter.
Rick
Great stuff, all. Wonderful to see these sets of pipes; now, Driftwood’s chanter really looks like it belongs with its set. Note how the popping valve ferrule has no lines turned in the metal, how the bits of the mechanism are a bit chunkier than on the chanters Rick and I have. The keys are a bit too skinny for the body, and have brass springs, while our chanters have nickel silver. If the same man made them all why not use the same metal? All of this makes me think these sets aren’t P Brown. Wish we had a pic or two of bona fide Brown sets; but like I said, from what I’ve heard they’re a bit finer made than these, with complex regulator keys/bodies, etc.
Thanks for posting those pics of my old set, guys. Was about to start fishing out any old pics I took. Brad also made the tuning pins for the regs, out of phony ivory. The original pins were just like the ones on your sets, little pyramids. Bass drone was missing. Nice drones; regs, while loud, did show some care in the holes, which had oval shapes with rounded edges instead of just the drill bit through the wood. Top of the bass reg was “broom handle” wood though, kinda crude. I had Angus make some ebony pieces for that. Played thousands of tunes on those pipes. They were nice and light, too.
Rosenberger had a musette de cour too, I was told. Solid ivory? Antique Irish pipes are a rare enough avis, where the feck did you find one of those fancy cornemuses in the 1950s or whenever?
Everything I know about Crowley brothers is via Harry Bradshaw, and I imagine he picked up his info from old timers in NYC, who are likely gone now. My theory about them is kind of process of elimination; I’ve seen sets built by Brennan, who also used the one piece regulator keys, and they’re, let’s say, distinctively crude in a way different than these pipes. Everyone else copying the Taylors built the complex reg keys - Brown, Hennelly, Hutton, Anderson, White. Haven’t seen a Green set. Yes, there were pipemakers in old time America named Brown, White, Green. Hat tip to Ted for pointing that out to me years ago. 
Colorful lot. Haven’t seen any Carney sets, either, just a very fancy chanter. Dave Quinn may well have taken a look at work from all of these pipemakers.
NPU source is down at the moment, might try and post some pics of pipers with these Crowley(?) pipes later. Crowley’s Reels were written for one of these guys, Master Crowley’s were named on the record for the other.
Yes there are quite a few little brass bits on this set:- all the key springs and pins, the drone switch and the chanter inlet tube which may have been originally nickle plated. The broken bass drone slide that came with the set was also brass as I recall.
This is all very interesting !
As for the non-GHB Bagpipes Pipe Major John Rosenburger
had when I saw him in San Diego, in 1993:
- The nicest McFadden set (by Frank McFadden’s Father in Belfast)
I ever saw, with the bent-over ears on the Regulator Keys
(instead of separate metal shoulder blades to hold the keys in place).
These Ribbon keys were serrated around the edges, by way of decoration. - A 1950s Moss Kennedy “D” set (Montenotte Park, Cork City) just like the one I had on loan.
- A Cornemuse de Berry ( This can also be called a “Musette du Centre”)
Now Kevin..This came with an interesting story, as John was part of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy.
As a Piper, he asked his French Hosts if they had any local Bagpipes he could see, so they
looked in an attic and came back with a Berrichone Bagpipe and gave it to him as “Une Cadeau”.
John was expecting to see a Breton Pipe, but it was from the South of France instead. - One of the nicest Taylor Double Chanters I have ever seen…
I asked to buy it but was gently refused. On the way out John gave me one of the nicest Pakistani
GHB Chanters that he had ,bought en masse for the Pipe Band
(they were all made to his specs and they all were Beautiful Chanters).
I later put this Chanter with a very Nice Pakistani set of Drones, etc.
and gave that set of Pipes away to my private Music student, Erin Johnson, much to her delight.
I think we might perhaps, be looking at one McFadden set here, but I don’t know now, as I don’t
have a photo to hand of Dan Sullivan’s McFadden set, which was bought by Larry____ in Oregon.
Then Larry passed it on to Brian Vallely in Armagh, as the Pipers Club is bringing home as many
of the Historic McFadden and O’Mealey sets as they can find, in order to put these Sets in the hands
of young Ulster Pipers.
I’m Sorry to “Muddy the Waters” but it’s all part of trying to identify these old sets of Irish Pipes,
without the previous generations of Pipers and Pipe Makers around to advise us.
Sean Folsom
Which happened to be the very first set of pipes pictured in the “pictures of your pipes” thread but unfortunatly the photos are gone.
RORY
Ah, Byron Boddy is a Portland player of the Scottish instrument who also has a Britton full set, he made lots of reeds for me when I was starting and was a Rosenberger student; can see how he wouldn’t know precisely which type of French pipe he was looking at.
Now where’d that double chanter wind up!
Thanks for the pic, Hans-Joerg. Are those Larry _____'s pipes? Why are we referring to him as ______, anyway? Sure he’s a bit off the grid. What did he call himself here…used to post a lot. I remember those pipes when Gail Gibbard owned them for a while, she lives in Portland as well and plays all of the British Isles bagpipes.
Went down to Kells in Portland on 3/17/1997 to hear a friend’s band play, guy I’m sitting next to asks if it’s pipes in the long box I have. Turned out to be Larry. Quite a coincidence. Nice guy all around.
As promised, here’s the photos from Ceol na hÉireann:
Don’t know why some of these pics are a bit screwy looking - will fix later, and add comments.
Yes, Kevin, saved from “Pics Of Your Pipes” (thanks for your pics, BTW). The other one is from a William Kennedy Festival - exhibition (I think taken by Paul Eliasberg).
A wee off-topic question - sorry Herr Folsom - : Did McFadden make these keyes?
Note that the “Larry” I wrote about is Larry W. Dickerson now in Walla Walla, Washington.
I just could not remember Larry’s last name, but he’s in my Face-Buch friends list.
His “Name” here is “Lorenzo”…
S.F.
On second thought, I’ll just leave those pics as is - it’s too much trouble to fix. All 3 editions of Ceol na hÉireann can be read in NPU’s Online Library at any rate, I just wanted to upload these as the picture quality at that site is a bit rough. Jack Flaherty and Tom Coyne appear to have Brennan or Crowley type sets with the simple type of reg key. Adam Tobin’s set is like that and 4 regs to boot; the tabs on the keys are more like the Brennan set I saw in the Angus workshop, where on the larger keys there are two small tabs instead of one big one. Wonder if it also had any square holes in the bass reg - no, really, this set had a square hole for the G key. Why in God’s name would he do that? Easier to make a pad, maybe?
Forget what Suzanne Neary’s Brennan looked like.
James Ryan looks to be sporting a 1 regulator O’Meally set. I always wondered if the other piper in that pic, William Maher, didn’t also have an O’Meally, but with teardrop shaped keys; note the folded back bass reg and concert pitch style chanter top. It’s not an Egan or Rowsome, those keys are much too wide. O’Meally could forge keys for his pipes, chanters of course but he also made bass regs for old 3/4 sets. The new Seán Reid Society has a picture of a few O’Meally sets with forged reg keys, too, which are also a bit on the humongous side like this one.
Reading Ronan Browne’s article on O’Meally pipes in that Seán Reid Society journal, I see that R.L. also made a set with the simple type of Taylor key, for piper Jim McIntosh; this is the deluxe set that Bill Haneman writes about in the journal.
Guten Tag, Herr Hans Joerg !
Ja, McFadden (Senior) made Ribbon Keys with the “Bent Over Ears” or “Tabs”.
I believe he also made plain edges on some of the keys on certain Sets of Pipes
not all the Keys on all of the Sets he made had “Serrations”
(decorative cuts into the Metal).
Great stuff Kevin as always !!!
Sean Folsom
P.S. I pulled off the 2 Videos on my You Tube Channel
that had me playing the Brad Angus Chanter that started
this whole business. There’s still some Photos on FLICKR,
if anyone is still interested in what the Chanter looked like.
S.F.
Thanks, irishpiper. Are you in Ireland? This father Quigley sent his chanters to a relation in Sligo, IIRC; Charles Roberts worked on the sticks and wrote it about for the NPU article I keep referring to. One of them had the flute keys on the front.
In actuality those keys were likely made for something else - clarinet? The pads on Boehm flutes are pretty monstrous sized. Or maybe they’re piccolo keywork. Doubt Patsy did all that work by himself, I’ve always assumed he raided the Haynes factory in Boston, or ordered what he wanted from Frerres or whoever was supplying band instruments back then.
Some old flutes mixed block and pin mounting:
From Rick Wilson’s page on “Old System” and Pratten flutes. These were simple system flutes but with keywork to seal the huge holes; it would’ve been impossible to cover them up otherwise. This way players familiar with the old type of fingering could also have the loud tone and accurate intonation of the Boehm and other systems, of which there were a bevy.
Here’s a picture of my D Noblet piccolo:
Again, this has simple system fingering, but keywork to cover up the holes - pretty useless keywork, since the holes are no larger than is usually found on these old piccs.
Note how the pads for each individual key are separate from one another - add a longer axle and you can add more pads as need be, for instance for the 4 holes you cover on the bottom hand of the pipes chanter. I’d imagine Brown used something similar. Or just standard flute keywork would do the job. With these keys the tubes the keys are fitted to slide over a rod, which is threaded at the end and screws into the post at the top of the key stack; thus when you unscrew it the various keys slide off the axles. Hope that makes sense.
Fitting keys like these to Irish pipes, you’d have to compensate for the lack of semitone keys on the axles - without them you have gaps in the sections of rod. Perhaps Brown had to solder new tubes to the keys.
Hello Kevin,
No problem..I am glade I can help in any little way possible. I am not from Ireland; I was Born and raised in the Boston area.
The two chanters that were once owned by Father Quigley, and that Charles Roberts serviced are in my posession. I obtained them from Charles himself. The first chanter is a typical Patsy Brown chanter. Ebony, German sheet silver and Ivory. The quality of the chanter is not one of his best I’ve seen and owned. The metal of the keys is rather thin and the ornamentation on the chanter is on the plain side.
The second chanter (which are shown by the pics) is Ebony, Silver or Brass;( which has been plated), and ivory. The chanters top has the words “P.Brown” stamped on the stop key. The popping valve is interesting because it contains the 5 rivets which are synonymous with the Taylor Brothers work rather that the 4 rivets that Patsy Brown normally uses. Perhaps it was switched out during its travels; I have no knowledge of that.
I have been told by elders who knew Patsy that the reason he used the Boehm flute style keys on some of his chanter (mostly the later chanters that Patsy made) was because of years as a bricklayer, Patsy developed serious Arthritis and had a very difficult time covering the holes completely so he developed a key system going by the Boehm flutes as an influence and created a chanter for the Uilleann Pipes that he could play without Arthritic pain. It would be also safe to say that he might have had knowledge of the Brian Boru Bagpipe developed by Henry Stark in which the bagpipes chanter has similar Boehm flutes style keys on it.
Again; this info has been passed down from mouth to ear and the exact reason for why Patsy made chanters with the Boehm flute style keys may lie with Patsy I’m afraid.
It refreshing to know that there are so many people who wish to keep these pipes and their history alive. 
can you recall Sean, if this was in the 16 pouce size range or the 20+ size?? as you know there are a plethora of French pipes going under the ‘du centre’ appelation. 
The keys look very evenly spaced. Does that mean the holes are also evenly spaced?
On every chanter I’ve seen, the spacing between the holes are different.
Thank You “IRISH PIPER” for the Photos of the P.Brown Chanter that Father Quigley owned,
as I had them for awhile, at my house in Del Rey Oaks, back in 1974.
It’s Good to Know They are being “Looked After” so well !
I agree with your story that the Key Work was to compensate for
Arthritis in Mr. Brown’s fingers. Also, in my own Music Teaching experience
my Saxophone students had far less trouble closing the Keys on their instruments,
and getting good tone, than my Clarinet students, who made numerous squeeks
due to not covering the open finger holes airtight, for many weeks into the course of study.
To Charles R. Yes, the Berrichone Cornemuse that P.M. Rosenburger owned was at least a 16 pouce
instrument, or perhaps an 18 pounce, somewhere in that range of measure.
(1 Pouce = 1 & 1/16th inches) All these Pipes now belong to his Son, who is also a GHB Piper.
I expect more to this thread, later, & in-a-while ?
Sean Folsom