Hello everybody and thank you in advance for any help you might be able to give me. This item came in me with several other items and was sort of overlooked when it came in. I pulled it out today and have never seen anything like it nor can I find anything online. The most similar item I have found is this; http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?dcm:1:./temp/~ammem_smAh::
Mine is made by the same maker, has the same wooden head, it is also two pieces but it does not have open holes and mine has an extra key or two. Please, forgive my ignorant attempt at a description but I am not a player.
Hi, and welcome. It would help if you could post photos* of the actual instrument and a measurement of the length of the flute, as well as any identifying marks or stamps you can decipher. Good luck!
No expert … But I’d say a standard Boehm system (i.e. modern) orchestral flute in C with a wooden head joint. I’m sure our resident experts will be along shortly. And maybe our David Migoya, who lives in Denver, can fill in details on Jean Mignolet.
By contrast, the Dayton Miller flute you linked to in your first post is a modified simple system flute. Simple system was supplanted by the Boehm system in the late 19th / earl 20th century, but is still the preferred system for Irish traditional music today.
This video with James Galway (Boehm flute) and Matt Molloy (simple system flute) shows some of the differences between the two:
I am not sure but I actually reckon this flute is simple system with covered holes (or hybrid system)
Looks like a long f key is present.
Possibly a French attempt at Boehm bore / old fingering.
Not positive just looking at the key work suggests it’s not standard Boehm.
Yes, dunnp’s on the money - definitely a “hybrid” - I haven’t seen one quite like this before. It definitely has basically simple system fingering but uses the Böhm cylinder tube and tone-hole placements plus platter keys on rod axles. The far side (bottom in photo) rack for L4th finger operation looks to have borrowed (or inspired?) some of the aspects of Carte’s 1851 arrangement (also used on the Radcliff System). Very interesting! And whereas English examples of such things are quite common, I don’t believe French ones are. Very high quality workmanship!
Yes, the 2nd touch for L4 is a long F, and the short F touch operates the same key. There is something interesting going on with the G and G# too - probably some sort of “split E” equivalent to vent 3rd 8ve E correctly. But the long C natural key is basic Simple System, not mounted onto the rod axles. We can’t see what’s going on with the thumb key(s), but that is probably a plain SS Bb set-up.
My 5th edn Langwill (anything extra in more recent editions?) has this entry:
Mignolet, J(ean).: Paris & Denver. c 1920.
The entry mentions 3 (?) flutes in the DCM of which “two have Mignolet’s patented G# key… patent taken out in France in the name of Bercioux.” Only one of them is actually made by Mignolet (?), 0138 & 0139 being made by his friend Djalma Julliot. (beachloan found 0139 - linked in the OP! so near yet so far… ) It is worth examining the photos of all three as they put 0176 and the OP flute into a context, though I think there are descriptive errors in the DCM text - the mechanism is clearly one where R1 gives F# and the short and long F keys open a closed standing F natural key when playing the E fingering (as per SS) - they are not “F# keys” as stated.
Mignolet appears to have been one of Miller’s sources for flutes…
DCM 0176 is a wooden example apparently very similar (identical bar material?) to the OP flute. (Once on the DCM website you can use the Search Tool.)
) It is worth examining the photos of all three as they put 0176 and the OP flute into a context, though I think there are descriptive errors in the DCM text - the mechanism is clearly one where R1 gives F# and the short and long F keys open a closed standing F natural key when playing the E fingering (as per SS) - they are not “F# keys” as stated.