A few weeks ago I bought an anonymous French five keyed flute at a flea market. I actually didn’t want to buy it, but the guy wanted to get rid of it so I payed 35 euro, figuring the keys alone might be worth more . As I said, it’s anonymous and it looks a lot like a Tulou five keyed, like most French flutes did at that time, I guess. But what puzzled me when I had a closer look at home is the end cap. It has MOP inlay with a flower engraved, and looks a lot like the Godfroy end caps. My question is: Has anyone ever seen end caps like that on anonymous flutes?
btw, after some basic repairs (crack to the head etc.), I oiled it up and threaded the tenons to decide if it would be worth the effort of a full revision. It turns out to be a great player. My baroque flute teacher fell in love with it and she convinced me to hang on to it.
Well, it’s certainly a nice example, high quality, probably relatively early given the plate-mounted pillars. I doubt there’s any way to ascribe it to a maker without any stamps on the wood or hallmarks on the metalwork. Best you can do will be to say “apparently in the style of”, if you can pin any features down closely enough for that, even.
That is a nice looking flute! The internal lined sockets are very common on French flutes, so that doesn’t tell us much about who made it. The external metal lining on the sockets is a bit less common, but still quite widely used. Aside from the end cap, the other distinguishing feature your flute has is plate mounted keys. I have never seen these on mass-produced flutes, and they are usually a good indication of quality. The shape of the plates (and keys) doesn’t look the same as the Godfroy flutes I’ve seen, or flutes from other big name, early French makers.
After some searching around, I think your flute looks quite similar to this flute by Raver, featured on Michael Lynn’s website:
The similarities I notice are the key and key plate shape and style, internal and socket lining, and overall body shape. None of these are completely distinctive, of course.
By the way, the feature that is really unusual, and which is shared between your flute and the Raver flute, is the shape of the connection between the shaft and cup on the G# key, specifically the right angled corner. That seems to be very much a distinguishing feature.
I forgot to mention that the flute is in A=440, another feature shared with the Raver flute. The main reason I was not interested in the flute at first was the fact that most of these flutes are pitched lower, so it would have been useless to me (lucky me). There was no case with the flute, but the person selling it also had a number of piccolos and fifes. Among them a nice Buffet, but also an anonymous 4 keyed piccolo that looked suspiciously like the flute. I kind of regret now that I didn’t buy that one. Might have matched the flute, like the Raver you linked to, Jon. I did buy a Thibouville Lamy fife in Eb from him (still waiting for the piccolo key pads I ordered to arrive, but I already know it sounds good).
Anyway, I’m very happy with the flute and it’s nice to know that it appears to be a quality instrument, even though it is anonymous. On the other hand, I’m starting to regret the fact that I started tinkering with it as a first attempt at flute repair. It might have been smarter to have had it repaired by someone more experienced… Maybe I’ll have it completely restored by someone else. The pads are still more or less okay, but they will need replacement soon, I think.
Thanks a lot for the research and the trouble you went through to help me guys! It is very much appreciated!
Just an update:
The flute is now being restored to it’s former glory by Geert Lejeune Who, btw, has a nice collection of French 19th century flutes himself. At the moment, he has a Godfroy Ainé for sale. For more details you should contact Geert.
. As I said, it’s anonymous and it looks a lot like a Tulou five keyed, like most French flutes did at that time, I guess. But what puzzled me when I had a closer look at home is the end cap. It has MOP inlay with a flower engraved, and looks a lot like the Godfroy end caps. My question is: Has anyone ever seen end caps like that on anonymous flutes?
As you can see, the sockets are metal lined. Here are the pictures:
It might have been smarter to have had it repaired by someone more experienced… Maybe I’ll have it completely restored by someone else. The pads are still more or less okay, but they will need replacement soon, I think.