(not mine, no connection)
https://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/msg/4804687252.html
fine old instrument, more suitable for classical music than folk,
small holes and double head (I do love the no slide rudall head that reminds me
Mrs Mc Evoy). I guess the serial to be 14xx but photos are unclear.
Interesting! Haven’t seen this combo before: a one piece head joint and a head joint with slide. The foot joint seems strange, doesn’t seem to have strike plates. I think it should have pewter C and C sharp plugs with square strike plates, and a pewter Eb with a square strike plate if the serial number is correct. I read it to be 1430, but the digits seem to be far apart from each other. The first address line under Rudall & Rose looks to me like Tavistock not Piazza. No it is 15 Piazza I see now. Foot joint doesn’t look right though
FWIW and to the extent I could do anything with the image of the serial number, it looks like 141? to me.
Steampacket, I’m not sure what you’re getting at in your comments about the foot keys. The tone holes/pad beds are pretty clearly original so far as the photos show them - no sign of extant or missing square receiver plates for pewter plugs. The key cups are also consistent with the other keys. You simply cannot make assumptions about design details based on other close-numbered flutes. We know well enough that R&R/RC in all their incarnations would make just about whatever a customer requested. So what if the flutes with neighbouring numbers or subjectively “in the same batch” as David Migoya might like to see it have 3 pewters on their foot joints? If a customer asked for cup keys with elastic plugs, he’d have got 'em! Yes, you can note that a flute with such different details is an exception to the generality of the run it is in, but there’s nothing “odder” about it than that. The address (I agree the photo doesn’t make it readable) could well be Tavistock Street and be perfectly correct - they were at 7 Tavistock street from 1822-5, which would seem quite sensible for the serial number range.
Even more strange if the serial number is indeed a low 141, that the flute doesn’t have three pewter plugs on the foot joint. Prehaps the person who placed the original order wanted a very quiet mechanism at the bottom end? All the Rudall descriptions I’ve seen so far have square pewter strike plates for the C & C# keys, up to around 5035, then round strike plates make their appearance on the foot joint together with a salt spoon Eb key with pad. I haven’t seen a description or photo of a simple system Rudall where the C & C# keys were salt spoon keys?. Not to say that they don’t exist, but I have no appetite, and I find it difficult to sleep now thinking about this.
gentleman…please stop assuming RR made only custom orders. They did not.
They would do so if requested, of course. The flutes bare that out. But the batching of flutes – those made by the same maker or, more likely in-house with the same tooling requirements so as to minimize the expense of resetting machines and cutters – is much more likely. Again…the flutes bare this out quite clearly.
And I would submit that you CAN make assumptions about design details based on other close-numbered flutes because it’s the ONLY way you’re able to discern anything from Rudall & Rose’s work barring any records.
So We really got You into this Rudall thing! : D
would also venture it looks like a four-digit serial number based on the centering to the C# hole.
The address is indiscernable to me, but it does appear to me as Tavistock. Certainly not No. 1, which was much later, and unlikely as 7 if it’s a four-digit serial. Maybe it’s one of those cross-over stocks from one address to the next. Odd.
The two-sided case for two heads is not unprecedented (if indeed it is an original), as they did this with some two-headed flutes with the Patent Head. The case in those instances was different than here, although the concept is essentially the same.
I agree with Steamy on the issue of the foot keys. I have yet to see a Rudall original flute with solid cups to the foot keys of C# and C. They have always been pewter plugs. As Jem notes rightly there appears no evidence that any square plates (as they would have been for this period) have been removed. There are times at this period when there are indeed only round excavations to the foot keys, but those would have been silver tubes inserted into boxwood to accommodate the pewter plugs above. Several flutes of this ilk appear in this period, including one in cocus that I own myself in roughly the same time period for a 14xx serial number.
While I agree it’s possible this could have been a custom order, it would be the only example extant, That’s troubling. The two key cups in question don’t appear to be quite as brilliant or clean as the others of the flute, so I would ask the seller whether the section is indeed stamped Rudall & Rose in the appropriate location. I assume it’s original since the shoulders to the keys indeed have ivory/steel pin inserts for strength, which was a Rudall feature at this period.
An interesting riddle. I’d like to see more/closer photos.
I love the second head piece. I presume one of the photos show it to be stamped properly.
I am not convinced, however, that these headpieces were original to the Rudalls of 8key simple system, but rather carry overs from other models they made at the period. We can’t assume this flute came issued with two headpieces rather than an owner liking the single head later and finding one that suited him.
There are two photos that when run back-to-back show the embouchure cuts of the two heads. The solid headpiece appears as the “quadrangle” shape, which does appear on the system flutes. The two-piece original head (assuming it is so) looks modified, as if to replicate the other.
I’ve always thought the headpiece on McEvoy’s flute was a Rudall head from a Boehm system flute of that period. I don’t believe the “french” slide had yet been incorporated to their design.
Um, David, I don’t think anyone in this thread has suggested that. I certainly didn’t. I said that one should not make assumptions simply because a given example seems exceptional to its context. We do know they did make custom orders, but no-one has suggested that was all they did!
Likely, yes, of course. But IIRA you yourself also infer from the evidence that serial numbers were a point of sale affair, so we might well expect special orders to break into runs of otherwise consistent batches.
I’d have to disagree there, at least with the choice of words - it is never scholarly to make assumptions (at least, not without clearly labelling them as such)! You can make observations and suggestions of likelihood, of course, couched in suitably conditional language, and where only the artefacts exist, yes, that is all you can do - an absolutely valid excercise so far as it goes, maybe even constituting a consensual “proof”. I trained as an Archaeologist, remember: interpretation of and inference from artefactual evidence (and the limitations thereof) is very much “my bag”.
well, then…observations.
of course, an assumption is merely an observation with an opinion attached. 
“So We really got You into this Rudall thing!” : D Radcliff
Yes. I now think the serial number of this Rudall is 1415. If you enlarge the stamp photo and focus on the third digit (1) then imagine the same spacing as between the first three digits, you can then discern the fourth digit quite clearly as a 5.
“I’ve always thought the headpiece on McEvoy’s flute was a Rudall head from a Boehm system flute of that period. I don’t believe the “french” slide had yet been incorporated to their design.”
Can you explain this David? If Catherine’s flutes headjoint was from a Boehm it would have a Boehm taper in the headjoint the so called parabola.
As far as I’m aware this is not the case.
If anything this Craigslist flute supports Catherine’s take on it that her flute may have originally had two heads.
Perhaps I’m not understanding you?
David said “I have yet to see a Rudall original flute with solid cups to the foot keys of C# and C.”
I have been looking closely at Helen Valenza’s #594, shown in Robert Bigio’s book. It is not easy to see but the C# and C cups, although acanthus shaped, look to have pads rather than pewter plugs and no catch plates. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
This is quite different to the other two acanthus decorated flutes, #2530 and “The Ivory One”, which both have square plates. My own #3632 has pewter plugs but rather than surface mounted catch plates the bore of the hole is line with a silver tube.
Always interested.
Martin
#594 quite clearly has padded cups with the acanthus leaf pattern in the photos in Robert Bigio’s book. You can easily see the (modern tan leather clarinet) pads in the R hand image of the two given, as well as the slightly concave pad beds. It is indeed the only non-pewter-plug equipped simple system flute in the book, bar the early pre-partnership ones which have flat-square (Rudall, Willis fecit) or flat-round keys (Rose) including all the foot keys. There are later, R&R flat-round (with cork pads) keyed flutes (e.g. the recent Bb foot one in Australia), but SFAIK they all have pewter plug C#/C foot keys.
Well spotted Martin. R&R 594 has indeed padded C# & C keys. They look like silver flat keys with the acanthus leaf pattern fitted with flat leather pads and no strike/receiver plates. This still makes the Craig’s list Rudall’s foot joint with C# & C salt spoon keys odd, although at least 594 is evidence of at least one other simple system Rudall with padded C# & C keys.
Here we go: an answer from the seller “The number looks to be 1418 or maybe 1413. It is also stamped with the address 15 Piazza Covent Garden in one place along with multiple Rudall&Rose, London stamps.”
"Here we go: an answer from the seller “The number looks to be 1418 or maybe 1413. It is also stamped with the address 15 Piazza Covent Garden in one place along with multiple Rudall&Rose, London stamps.” Radcliff
Good work, I have 1415? in my register, I’ll update it tonight. This was the problem with the 13 key Rudall in the recent Melbourne auction, hard to tell if it was 1713 or 1718. Was the stamped carelessly applied, or is it due to wear and tear, prehaps both.
Well, the address certainly makes better sense for the serial number. So much for trying to read duff photos!
Not a problem.
I agree that it seems to support the theory…but you have to ask the question: why have a second headpiece for a flute when it is identical to the first, offering no specific benefit?
The parabolic head is hardly accurate, more closely to a slight taper from a cylindrical body.
I must admit not having measured McEvoy’s headpiece.
But I don’t doubt that Rudall heads used could be from any number of the different models, not just Boehm flutes they made. Carte’s perhaps? Or Radcliffe?
Either way…the idea here is not that they are of a certain design or not as far as its taper, but rather that these head pieces were not specifically made for these flutes, instead being a cross-over partnering.
Again, just a theory…but I would have say it would likely be expensive for RR to make a special cut/work of a headpiece … unless they had a bunch laying about from other flutes, wouldn’t it?
I hope that helps a little.
dm
Indeed, Martin, i had forgotten about Helen’s acanthus leaf flutes (including the ivory one)…which must use the pads in order to accommodate the design pattern.
Very good catch. It’s not unprecedented…but those were very expensive custom flutes. Why do a “regular” flute that way? That makes little sense. And please, no random notes on “they’d do whatever you wanted if you were willing to pay.” That’s too easy.
I took another look at my own cocus 15xx that has pewter plugs on the foot joint that sit into metal tubes (and is not boxwood, which was a practice of that timber), and there are indeed square shapes for where there could have been plates inserted.
Why would they have chosen tubes instead? I have no idea.
David, Helen Valenza’s acanthus pattern flutes both have pewters under the C#/C keys, as Martin noted above from Robert’s illustrations. On square plates. Presumably your flute with tube-bushed holes for the pewters in Potter style was using established technology for some reason (bought in from an outworker, we might speculate?), or it could even be an old repair for lost plates? I think most of the R&R boxwood flutes have standard R&R hardware?