For sale is an incredibly rare and beautiful instrument that I’ve been fortunate to own. I purchased it direct from Mr. Swayne about a year ago and have rarely played it. Most of my time is spent playing the uilleann (and highland) pipes so it’s time this nearly new whistle get some playing time. This whistle is conically bored and is made of lignum vera (which according to Mr. Swayne is naturally oily and rarely needs oiling) and has a brass tuning slide. It also comes with a soft case.
As mentioned, Mr. Swayne’s low d whistles are extremely rare. Those on his wait list knows it takes years to get one of these. In fact, doing a search I’ve not seen one ever listed on chiff and fipple before. I’m considering going the ebay route but would like to offer it here on C & F first.
Please email at: rlhill1979@sbcglobal.net with any questions orwould like pics. I’ll consider best offers over the next week before trying the ebay route.
Hi. I have a Swayne high D which I love! I’ve had goes a couple of times on low Ds by him and they are just as stunning. Stephen Rees of Welsh group Crasdant has a grenadilla one that I covet, though I’d prefer box like my high one!
Can I suggest that, to give us a “ball-park” idea of what would be sensible offers? You might add to your public listing information what these whistles currently cost new and/or what your “reserve” would be? FWIW, Swayne low Ds are listed at £350 on the info about him on the “High End Whistles” page of the main C&F website, but I think that may be rather out of date?
It would also be helpful to know, since your profile doesn’t have much info on it, what part of the world you are in, what currency you would deal in and where you would or wouldn’t be prepared to despatch to, etc. If you put that kind of general info up here, it will save you writing a lot of pms answering the same range of Qs!
I’m seriously tempted!!!
Good luck with the sale, and thanks for putting it here before going to eBay.
To answer your questions, I live in Michigan in the USA. However, I will ship the whistle world wide if the buyer is legite. As you mentioned, Mr. Swaynes posted price on these is 350 pounds sterling which equates to about $717 USD. I would use this as a minimum since I’ve had an offer higher than this. I would post pics if I knew how but will email them to anyone interested.
Hope that helps!
Steve
PS: feel free to email me or pm me if you have any other questions.
Hope
Not to be critical, as this may indeed be an entirely fair price for such a rare item. Whatever the market will bear, as they say. But, I’m wondering if anyone knows of another case of a Low D selling for that amount or higher. We may be about to see a record broken.
Honestly, doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me. Wood Low D’s are about the most expensive new whistles one can purchase. I expect that Bleazey, Swayne, Stewart, & Grinter Low Ds are in the $500-700 range USD. A Sweetheart Low D in blackwood is $525. An O’Riordan Low D just sold on ebay a few days ago for over $900 - but that’s an O’Riordan.
I take it you are “wowing” the price? The whistle would have you in even more of a flutter. These are possibly the best whistles in existence, but are relatively little known partly because he doesn’t make a lot and partly because Jon Swayne moves chiefly in European bagpipe and Anglo-French music circles, not ITM.
I haven’t had the good fortune to encounter a Glenn Schultz whistle, but from what I’ve read of those, Swayne’s deserve similar respect.
Incidentally, Swayne’s price for these direct is very comparable to what you’d have to pay for a similar quality keyless flute (if you were lucky!) and cutting good fipple-flute heads is much harder and riskier than cutting transverse flute embouchures - there’s more to go wrong, more work and less chance of correcting errors without having to remake the head section. These are very serious pro-quality instruments.
That said, I wouldn’t pay more than the maker’s price for a second hand one unless I was in a desperate rush - I’d rather wait. So my interest in this one will remain that of an enthusiastic observer.
SRHill, it would be great if you could post some pics for us to drool over. It isn’t very hard - you upload them to a hosting service (websearch for such - I use a free one called Faces, but there are loads), get a sharing link url and insert that url in your posting here bracketed by the Img tags in the header of the composition box. Easy. Sound clips the same - upload clips to Boxnet or similar free host and copy the links provided here - bracketed by the Url tag in that case.
I’m sure some of the flabberghast would diminish if the flabberghasted saw and heard the whistle!
I bought my high D for £135 about four years ago, and it was money well spent. I’ve recently posted a bunch of clips played on it here.
