A friend of mine is putting his Cotter flute up for sale on EBay. He’s selling it to defray the cost of some recent instrument purchases.
It’s a really lovely keyless flute - nice honking tone. I’ve played it before at the session and have even borrowed it a couple times. If you’ve never played them, Eamonn makes a really great Pratten esque flute.
It’s up on EBay if you are interested in taking a look. There’s photos and more description on the site.
I think Harry’s mainly playing Murray flutes. He was playing a Cotter Eb for a while and recorded a few tunes with it on his first album, but I believe he has since switched to a Murray.
I’ve been playing a 6-key Cotter for the past three or four years, and it’s a very nice flute.
Dave charges $890 for a new keyless flute with silver tuning slide and $800 with a nickel slide. I don’t think $800 is an unreasonable starting price. Plenty of high-end flutes retain full retail value on the second-hand market, and the Copley is no exception.
I didn’t say ‘unreasonable’. If it has a silver slide perhaps I’m wrong to say it’s high too. But, starting prices aren’t usually ending prices and at least two keyless Copleys were offered recently on C&F substantially cheaper. Can’t say offhand what the slide was made of though. So, how long is that waiting time?
You know what, i may be outdated. With the weak dollar these days, these prices may be right. I keep forgetting that.
My sources say Brad Hurley plays a Cotter.
I bought mine mostly on the recommendations of David Migoya and Harry Bradley, and i’m very happy with it. Mine is a 6-key, and the wait for it was about 7 months. The wait for a keyless should be a couple of months. Keep in mind that Eamonn is not the kind of guy who will hurry to keep a deadline.
Brad, what are you doing in that avatar? It seems you’re either playing a nose flute or popping a zit. It’s very disturbing, either way.
He’s blowing a blade of grass! You know that squawk? It’s fun!
If there is no reserve on an auction, I think it’s normal to have the starting bid be the least you would accept for the flute, so if you get only one bid, it’s not a problem.
Yeah, that’s a way to do it, and it’s slightly cheaper for the seller than setting a reserve. I did a reserve auction once, but frankly, they’re irritating for everybody. Better set the minimum price where you want it to be, i think.
Oh, shoot, you did. I read “Harry Bradley” when you wrote, clearly, “Brad Hurley.”
Well, sorry. I was actually introduced to Harry last night, and the person introducing us said, “Stuart, this is Brad Hurley. Brad, this is Stuart.” But it was Harry.
The Copley or the Cotter? The Cotter has a bid already and three days to go. The Copley’s priced just a bit higher than others have been offering them for recently, not much higher, just a bit.
All the serious action in auctions—if there’s going to be any serious action—is in the last few hours. You have no way of telling. (I hate auctions, personally. I find myself either bidding over what I regard as my walk away price because I get caught up in the thrill of the chase, or I don’t bid at all for fear that I’ll get caught up and regret it.) Nobody wants to give the impression days in advance that they are interested, thus arousing interest in others that might otherwise lie dormant.
I just decide on what’s the max i’d pay and bid that upfront. There’s no free lunch anyway.
The other day i bought a Sony microphone. There are lots of them there, some as auctions and some as “buy now”. The cheapest “buy now” was $69, so i put a bid for $65 on an auction, thinking, what-the-hell. Can you imagine i got quickly outbid and the thing went way over $70? Why would i bid more than what i could buy the thing for?
Flutes are harder, because some of them are one of a kind, but most of us are on limited budgets, so decide how much you can spend, and for Brad’s sake, don’t go higher than that. But in this case, $900 is probably more than this flute sells for when it’s new, anyway. Dang! I wish i remembered. The 6-keys were 1400 Euro, the keyless, were they 600 or 800 Euro?
