A true R&R for 5’000 $… nice? : )
(strange sale for a watch seller)
Incredible large key of long F for a midium/small holes flute isn’t it?
take a Look… http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3701747215
I’m looking for a large holes, so I will not bid on it… (ha ha ha)
Yes, you would think that if you were hoping to raise in excess of £3k for a flute you might put a bit more effort into the photographs. Still, I bet you it sells without a problem - the rest of them do!
I have just been checking a " 15 Piazza" Rudall I have here .The key in question is 10.5 mm .Rather smaller, I think , than the one illustrated . However I would like to bet that the flute is right .You should never buy without getting decent photos !
I have here examples of both R and W.H.Potter, and would agree that the flute just sold was W.H .Very reasonable price, I thaught .It goes to show that you shouldn’t believe what Ebay vendors tell you!
I keep seeing contributors agonising over the waiting times for keyed examples by second rate makers .Why do they not consider the examples being offered of old flutes ?I recently bought at a very moderate price a " D’Almaine “stamped flute on Ebay which is as good as most flutes sold by Rudall & Rose .It was made by the person who made my George & Manby flute, and almost certainly the " Goodlad” flute being offered by Dave Ogden on the Irish flute site .
My flute should have been bought by someone who wants and needs a keyed flute, instead of greedy old me !
Sorry to side-track the discussion, but a gentleman just contacted me about his 1930s Boosey and Hawkes flute in Bb, with pin-mounted keys. The flute looks in great shape (he sent photos). He asked me what I thought it might be worth, and I haven’t a clue. Would anyone care to hazard a guess? He’s going to sell it, either on my Wooden Flute Exchange or on eBay.
It has four keys and a short foot joint–well, actually no foot joint at all; it is just a two-piece flute, with a head joint (doesn’t look like there’s a tuning slide, but not sure) and a one-piece body that goes right down to the foot.
Well Andrew, I was bidding on that D`Almaine flute, but because my dial-up connection is so slow I often loss out in the last secounds. Those of us that prefer to live in the sticks are not offered DSL or cable. Oh well, I do have a forest of boxwood early 19th century american flutes coming this week to try out. Maybe I will get lucky.
Buying those flutes is a little like buying Generation whistles – the quality varies all over creation, but they’re inexpensive. So for less than the price of a new keyed flute or an antique from a well-known maker, you might very well have a flute that really sings. I’ve got a turn-of-the century nameless four-key boxwood that has a golden tone, but horrible intonation. I paid $100 for it, will probably have to invest twice that getting the intonation fixed, but it’s still a pretty good deal.
Well Charlie, Ill let you know. They are made by Hall and Sons, Firth Hall and Pond and de Peloubet. At least they werent afraid to put their names on them
Clearly that flute is worthless, but being the good chap that I am, tell this fellow I’ll give him a hundred bucks for it anyway, out of the kindness of my heart
On a more serious note, I’d love to see the pictures.
I’ll double-check with the guy and see if it’s okay for me to post his ad with a “reasonable offer” price; that way folks can look at the photos, send him an offer, and he can sell to the best offer he receives.
If I post the ad, I’ll put a link here on the board.
Try David Migoya; he should be able to give an estimate.
It will probably sell easily on eBay, because it has 2 magic words in it: Boosey and Bb. Tell him to make sure to mention this is the kind of flute Matt Molloy plays!
Strange configuration, though. Probably made as a cheap flute for marching band use(?). Still, i think it should sell for good money.
It turns out this is a case in point of the need to provide comparative references in photos: it turns out that this is a “baby” flute, pitched an octave above the big Bb models, same pitch as a fife. But it’s a flute, not a fife or piccolo, and as Glauber suggests it was probably for marching bands.
So I assume this flute would be worth a few hundred bucks at most, as opposed to a couple thousand.
The thaught that Mr Molloy would ever play a Boosey & Hawkes flute is too awful even to contemplate .
I trust that nobody will ever confuse Boosey & Co , and Hawkes & Co with Boosey & Hawkes Ltd. It might cause the wasting of someone’s hard earned money .
Oh, right! I assumed a low Bb, the kind that’s very popular these days. In this case yes, probably $150 to $500, and harder to sell, since people looking for Bb fifes to play will probably go to Skip Healy or another of the modern makers. This could be interesting to a collector or someone interested in historical flute marching bands.
It occurs to me that if anybody is interested in fifes they might like to look at the Rudall Rose & Carte boxwood and ivory flute ( 4 keys ) offered by Pamela’s flutes ( Try Google ) at £225 .Or look at Mr McGee’s unusual Rudalls site .
Why wouldn’t this be a piccolo, Brad? A Bb piccolo, to be specific? Doesn’t ‘piccolo’ mean ‘little’ in Italian, so if a regular or common piccolo is an octave above a regular flute, i.e. it is literally a ‘little flute’, couldn’t this flute that is an octave above a regular Bb flute be a ‘little Bb flute’ aka a Bb piccolo?
Fifes are definitely different from flutes, although personally I’m not sure just what it is that actually makes them different - but there is some defining characteristic, whatever it is. So if this Bb instrument looks like a flute, only smaller, then you’re right that it couldn’t be called a fife. But if it is indeed just like a flute, only smaller, then i think a piccolo is what it is.
(ha ha ha)
