Hi all,
this is the second flute of this type I have for sale, and it shares lots of similarities with the first one.
It was made in Germany in early to mid 20th century, marked “PUSTOPHON / HANS KREUL / TUBINGEN”, serial “16084”. The company is still active today (http://www.kreul.de), making high end clarinets, saxophones and flutes.
It’s a Schwedler type, 1895 model (http://www.oldflutes.com/articles/schwedler.htm), with 12 nickel silver keys plus the so called “brille” on the top two tone holes, whose function is to bring in tune the high C# without flattening the cross fingered C . This “brille” works automatically when you play, no change of fingering from the normal simple system is required.
The keys are the 8 standard ones plus a right-hand touch for Bb, a second G# (to press with the left thumb), the E trill (I think), and the low B on the footjoint.
I’m quite certain the wooden body is made of Grenadilla blackwood. The metal headjoint has an ebonite lip plate with what today is called “wing embouchure”, that was introduced in 1904 by Otto Mönnig (he called it “reform embouchure”), it became quite popular with Boehm flutes at the time.
It had a thin crack on the wooden socket, I’ve pinned it, glued it and reinforced the socket with carbon fibre. It should be super stable now and almost invisible.
Pads were in good conditions and after some treatment and repositioning they seal well. Corks are also original and in good shape.
It was possibly (but not necessarily) built with a slightly lower than modern pitch in mind (A=435hz?), but it plays in very good tuning at modern pitch of A=440hz with the tuning slide opened around 5mm (it used to be around 3mm but I shortened the metal barrel and slide just a couple of mm to allow some extra room for tuning sharp, just in case).
This flute has a great strong tone. The resonance and clarity given by the metal headjoint mixes in an interesting way with the character given by the conical wooden body. Compared to the other Schwedler I sold, it sounds mellower and less open, with a more complex reedy sound. I believe this is entirely due to the shape of the embouchure hole, which has a more traditional ellipse on this flute, while on the other one it was closer to a rounded rectangle. The “sweet spot” is less easy to find, but in my opinion you get a nicer sound and more tonal possibilities.
But they do share the same main qualities, so here I quote myself:
“Think of a Pratten type, but with a brighter, less wide but more penetrating sound. I would imagine this is about as loud as a flute with medium-small hole can be. It’s very responsive with very solid low notes, great foot notes and banging low D, which is a feature of Schwedler’s bore design. I don’t use the third octave much but the few notes I can finger up there are particularly clear and easy to sound compared to pretty much all other simple system flutes I’ve played. The “brille” is not so noticeable when you play, it’s very easy to get used to it.”
The keys work great. I would personally like to be able to turn the footjoint more towards the player, but the right hand joint and the footjoint are in one piece. Still, the low notes sound easy and strong, even low B is really nice!
It comes with its original deluxe case, which is in great conditions: sturdy, velvet lined, probably original cork grease container (with old cork grease inside, I would change it to a fresh one but you can also use it, at your own risk…!). The closing mechanism is moderately hard to open, but it closes well.
Asking price is 880 euros which includes shipping.
Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R2aNRTN0Tg
And pictures:
