I have for sale a widebore peter hunter chanter in good working order. The chanter has 4 keys. It is described as being made in 1997 by peter hunter but i have doubts to the accuracy of this and believe it was made by sam. Whovever the maker is it is a fine chanter but just too loud for my d set. I am selling the chanter to put the money towards a b half set i recently purchased. Asking price £600 plus postage of your choice.
I am based in the west midlands, UK
I can send pics to anyone interested, but here is a link to the chanter which i bought from someone on par Darcy`s site…its no 28
With all the makers that are now copying the outward look of Hunter pipes this was bound to happen, but I didn’t think it would happen so quickly, and I bet the same thing will happen with all the O,Brien cloned chanters
In my opinion, the man who turns the wood, reams the chanter & drills the tone holes is the maker of that instrument, even if he’s making an instrument from someone elses plans, just because one maker uses an other makers tools don’t mean to say he has the right to put the tools owner name on an instrument, that dos’nt mean to say that the pipemakers apprentice or partner in business isn’nt a quality craftman either, if its a partnership or registered company then it would perfectly be OK to do what they are doing, but they should inform you of this when you enquire or order your pipes, it can be a little misleading if they don’t, just my opinion here no personal dig ment, I know one thing thow, if I ordered & bought a set of pipes that cost a lot of bucks I would sure want to know who would be making the chanter & set! or if buying who made the set! I was going to be playing in my hands, I would expect my pipes to be made by the organ grinder! not the Monkey, unless it stated there was a partnership in the manufacturing of there instruments, I would’nt be happy with a company name on them either, that could mean anyone could have made them, this will seriously effect the resale price of your set of pipes, but if its a partnership I find no problem with that dosn’nt Keohler & quinn work this way, I think the Taylor brothers worked that way also, no personal digs meant here, but people you need to do your home work before you buy or order a instrument, make sure you know who is making it. all the best.
Looks like some things need clearing up here. This chanter was bought as part of a half set in 1995 by Mark Neilly, now residing in Scotland. He still has the drones. It had wooden mounts and one key. A few years back it was brought back to have ivory mounts added (I think) but definitely came back to have these swapped for imitation. I did this, and added 3 keys for him - the mounts were copied exactly from Peter’s. I put a wooden cap to it as well. I think!
To be honest it’s hard for Peter and myself (and some others) to tell exactly who did what on a particular chanter, but I will get in touch with Mark to find out for sure. One thing for certain is that the body of the chanter was made in 95 by Peter, long before I became his apprentice. This has not been altered in any way, at least not by us (last time I saw it it hadn’t).
You can hear the chanter played by Mark on our site and Pat’s.
With all the makers that are now copying the outward look of Hunter pipes this was bound to happen
Well . . . I work with Peter, using all the same kit that he’s always used. I don’t bring any of my own ideas or personality to the instruments - yet! The chanters have the same outward and inward characteristics as always - that’s why they carry Peter’s name and have his input (though not chisel wielding anymore) through the manufacturing process - if he wasn’t happy it would be up against the wall and smashed. You hear from me because Peter doesn’t get involved with the internet (smart man).
Peter is not the only maker to work with other craftsmen/women.
We realise that things can get confusing when old chanters have come back in and I have added mounts / keys / wooden cap / fluorescent paint etc . . .
On the subject of the look of Hunter pipes, I see an influence from the Ennis Coyne set, particularly in the chanter top and mounts. Sam, can you say if this is so and if it was Peter’s intention?
I must say that I made my posting above without seeing the one from stew which must have been made as I wrote mine. I think it is obvious that much of it is meant as a dig at meself, which unfortunately / fortunately will not draw the retaliation usually seen on here . . .
Sorry to draw Andreas Rogge into this but there is nothing on his website to suggest that a chanter may not be physically made by his hands, though this is common knowledge. So what; it doesn’t matter, it is still a Rogge chanter. He checks it over before it is sent out. It doesn’t affect the resale value. The most important thing I would be after in a set of pipes is that it worked very well and looked good / exquisite. Great tone, great tuning, well put together, airtight, finest materials etc etc.
The partnership is not like K&Q as I am still the apprentice (if not in a mechanical sense) and not an equal part of the Hunter thing. I might not yet be allowed to grind the organ entirely unaided but I hope I am not a total monkey!
It’s been a little tricky to decide at what point to make it clear that I am doing almost all of the physical work on the pipes because as my input has increased, Peter’s has decreased - imagine a sort of elongated X shape that hasn’t quite hit the floor on the right hand side . . . it’s obviously time now though. I’d add that as far as I know, everyone on the waiting list knows the state of affairs in the Hunter workshop.
PJ - yes Peter is influenced visually by Coyne amongst others.
i unintentionally appear to have stirred up a hornets nest by my posting. This was not meant to be the case, i thought it only fair to descibe the chanter as accuratly as i could, given the infomation i have on it. Someone, who did have a fairly close relationship with Peter hunter told me that the chanter did not look like Peters work mainly because of the windcap and the height of the keys above the chanter.
Sam has confirmed on this forum that he did work on both the keys and windcap so i think the case is now closed and it would be safe to assume that as sam says, the body of the chanter is by peter Hunter himself with a few later mods by sam.
The chanter plays beautifully so there is not an issue to the workmanship of either Peters of sams work, but i have to raise my issues in the original advert so as to be as honest as possible.
Maybe i should have kept quiet and just advertised it as a hunter chanter.
I have a c~ set made by sam and the workmanship is superb.
Ah no N, don’t worry about the Hornets, we have skin thick enough that they can’t sting us annyway.
The only thing about the windcap that probably made
Someone, who did have a fairly close relationship with Peter
think it wasn’t a Hunter is the brass plug, which is however a Hunter original idea done first for O’Flynn in the 90’s. I (as usual) just did what Peter suggested . . .
Mr Neilly is however a very honest man, although a self-confessed musician, and the chanter is as he described it.
It was good that this time, the maker was able to verify the who had made and worked on the chanter.
But in thirty or whatever years time do you think it matters that it will be impossible to tell if a chanter is made by Hunter,SamL ,Stephenson ,Carroll or any one of David Stephenson’s students?
Can you tell what work was done by Dan O Dowd and which was Johnny Bourke’s? What was done by Eugene Lambe or Michel Bonamy or whoever was working for/with him at the time? Brian Howard or Cillian O Briain (when he apprenticed with him), Breandan Ring or whoever else Alain had working with/for him? Or any of the other makers that use ‘drones’ (I heard acolytes used as well during the week). It’s an established practice. Does it matter a lot? And if you think it does, does it matter more in this case than in others?
What if in Harringtons day,he had alot of imatators who made pipes that looked like harringtons but were sub-standard on the inside.
We may now say of Harrington, he made a few good sets but alot of his stuff was crap . Does this matter?
Maybe The Taylors are a better, and certainly more realistic, example than Harrington because there are plenty of sets that in the past have been ascribed to the Taylors while they probably weren’t made by them at all. Interesting enough we were discussing a recently discovered ‘Taylor’ two nights ago that is in doubt as well, simply because it is WAY too nice and well made to qualify as one and shares more inner characteristics with a Coyne than with the usual Taylor . Interesting isn’t it how these things are?
The Taylors reputation is not based on the exceptional tonal qualities of their pipes,but more their method of manufacture, if someone botched up the inside of Taylor pipes you probably wouldn’t notice anyway.
The point of my previsious post is that the reputation of a great pipemaker could in the future be ruined by sub-standard copies.
I think if a maker is going to copy exactly the outward appearance of pipes by a reputable maker he should somehow mark them to show who made them ,to avoid confusion.
unless it stated there was a partnership in the manufacturing of there instruments, I would’nt be happy with a company name on them either, that could mean anyone could have made them, this will seriously effect the resale price of your set of pipes, but if its a partnership I find no problem with that dosn’nt Keohler & quinn work this way, I think the Taylor brothers worked that way also, no personal digs meant here, but people you need to do your home work before you buy or order a instrument, make sure you know who is making it. 
all the best.