Rudall & Rose cocuswood eight key flute, with patent head, silver keys, pewter Eb in the coming G&H auction the 15th of June. Lot no. 907. Don’t have the serial number yet. The flute looks to be in fine condition. From what can be seen, the head joint and barrel don’t appear to be cracked, but as there is only one photo it’s possible there is a crack on the back of the head joint?
https://www.gardinerhoulgate.co.uk/Catalogues/mi140618/page017.html
I queried the condition of the R&R with Gardiner Houlgate & received the following reply. It’s an interesting spelling of Tavistock. I presume it is the auctioneer’s misreading.
Lot Number: 907 There will be no VAT on sale hammer price.
Description
Eight-keyed rosewood flute by Rudall & Rose, London, c1830, silver mounts and keys, patent head-joint, sounding length 577mm Condition Report Key blocks of long F key repaired. Head joint and barrel both with long open cracks. There is a crack running the length of the head joint and a crack running the entire length of the barrel joint. All keys are very tarnished and would likely re-padding. Stamped ‘Rudall & Rose, London’ to the barrel and lower two joints, the middle joint is stamped Rudall & Rose Taverstock Street, Covent Garden, London, 4117. If sold within the UK there will be no Cites restrictions although if the flute is to be exported outside of the EU there will be.
Estimate: £1500-2500 Currency: GBP - UK Pound
Thanks Alan. I think besides the spelling of Tavistock, they have the serial number wrong too. Rudall & Rose 4117 is a 9 key flute “Small-holed Rudall and Rose 4117 in cocus, with 9 sterling keys, including LH and RH touch Bb. Original head has sterling lip plate, and sockets are lined with sterling cups. Comes with an original case in poor condition. It was completely overhauled by Terry McGee 3 years ago. …”
In the pictures GH sent me you can clearly see the cracks and the state of the keys. The long F block has been glued & doesn’t look particularly well done to me. Also GH forgot to mention that there’s a piece missing out of the short F block & the pin is exposed. Unfortunately there’s not enough detail to read the stamps.
That typo for Tavistock is almost certainly a typist’s error working from dictated audio. It won’t be the stamp spelling!
4117 resides with a player in Canada and was once owned by our own Arbo on this board, fwiw.
based on the details of my research, the likely serial number, considering the style of the flute and its patent head, is possibly 4107 or even more likely 4112. Perhaps as high as 44xx or so.
a perfectly fine Rudall that might need some overhaul and a new headjoint…
the tragedy is it’s labeled as rosewood and that makes the CITES people stand up.
too bad.
for those who care…the actual serial number (be sure to copy this down!)…is 4417.
It is the same flute from the batch that is 4411, in the Dayton Miller collection, which has a patent and regular headpiece.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/dcmflute.0365.0
A number of large-holed Rudalls with Patent Heads appear in the serial number sequences that follow these, according to my research.
With some work, it will likely be a very nice player.
Regarding the serial number of the R&R in G&H’s auction on 15th June. After manipulating the G&H photos and comparing the numerals in the photo of the serial number with the numerals in the serial number on my own R&R 4871 I am certain the serial number is 4147, not 4417.
Sold for £2500.00 hammer price, plus auction costs. Not bad for the current market.
“Sold for £2500.00 hammer price, plus auction costs. Not bad for the current market.” Uniflute.
Indeed, these fine old flutes are great value for the money
I did the math to convert it to dollars:
2500 GBP plus 27.6 VAT and fees divided by .75 (the current exchange rate with US Dollars) is $4253. I noticed on this one a few broken blocks, one apparently re-glued (long F) and the other missing wood.
Am now rethinking what I will want to sell this relatively pristine RR&C that has been Nicholsonized for. Am doing this for a friend.
Casey
There is no V.A.T. on this flute Casey, only the buyer’s premium which is 24%. So £2500 plus £625 = £3125 ($4146).
The glued long F block, and wood missing from the short F block seem to be cosmetic as long as the glued block is stable. No problem to polish the silver keys and rings and put on new pads.
The cracked patent head joint and barrel is a more complicated repair, but as the crack is not through the embouchure, the flute should play fine if the crack on the barrel is taped on the inside of the socket to stop air leaking between the socket and tenon. I have a patent head, with this type of crack on the back of the patent head and barrel, that plays fine with tape on the inside of the barrel socket.
This one has sold for rather more than quite a few over the last couple of years. If it’s the start of a trend of values going back up towards what they were a decade ago, or closer to new-made 6+ key “Irish” flutes from good makers, I certainly welcome that. But one swallow does not a summer make. Casey, of course this sale does have valuation implications, but just because this one pulled a decent price unrestored (at an auction, where two stubborn bidders can easily inflate a result) doesn’t mean you can readily find a buyer for a wonderful instrument in top ready to play condition at a retail price projected from this sale. Things used to work that way, but it’s hit and miss if they do now. I’d love to see the market revive, more players choose these fine old flutes over new ones…
I’ll second what Jem says regarding appropriate value for these flutes. They should be worth far more than a modern reproduction just on the basis of originality/age alone. Also, Cocuswood is effectively a near unobtainable hardwood these days, and if you’re lucky enough to acquire some, it’s highly unlikely to be of the same grade/age/quality as the wood which was available to the original craftsmen of the 19th Century. Unlike modern Irish flutes, these come in a far greater variety of specifications regarding tone hole size, bore profiles, embouchure cuts, rare (tried and tested) hardwoods, etc. The original flutes were designed to play over a range of three octaves, unlike the modern ones, which generally are made to cover the first two.
Well, above $4000 was my point - not the exact estimate.
Question: do people think the patent heads add value or subtract value to these, in terms of playability etc. The few that I have seen and in some instances repaired seemed more of a liability to the flute especially for its playing qualities. Too much metal stuffed up the bore perhaps, being prone to leaks, etc. Plus I have found that plug positions are sometimes highly individual.
As a general rule, a Rudall with a patent head should be worth more than one without. If someone who knows about flutes is selling one, they may ask considerably more for a Rudall with a patent head than for one without. If one is put up for auction, then the price may be more variable, depending on the detail of the listing itself and who is looking at the time.
I am aware that these patent headjoints are heavier than an ordinary head, and some find that this can effect the overall balance of an 8 key flute, making it more top heavy. If I am correct, Jem Hammond notes this change in balance is not a problem on Rudalls with extra keys, such as a Bb foot.
From what I’ve seen over the years, Patent Heads have generally been seen by ITM players as undesirable and a disincentive to buy the instrument, whatever its condition. When ITM players were the main market for R&Rs a PH example was probably worth less than a plain head one. A flute collector might take a different view in that PHs are less common, though they’re not exactly rare. But nowadays for the most part none of the three main potential markets for mid C19th English 8-key flutes - collectors, ITM players or period instrument classical players (and those last were never much interested) are strong or lively, and I doubt the PH has much influence on value. I view the recent GH auction result as rather a surprise and as erratic in the current market. Like Steampacket, I have bought R&Rs and seen others sold for significantly less in recent years. I did manage to sell a very nice, fully restored later RC&Co. with GS fittings for c£2k a couple of years ago, but I had to be patient to get a sale, as readers may remember.
Should a R&R like the GH auction one, once restored, be worth £3,500-ish? Absolutely. Would it sell for that these days? Very doubtful.
Currently on eBay, repeatedly, there’s a very fine Rivière &Hawkes 8-keyer being sold by Dom Allan, sometime of this parish. He’s dropped the price from a very reasonable £1k down to £500 (about what one of Casey’s keyless flutes costs imported to GB) and it still isn’t going. Those are stonking good flutes and it would serve a trad fluter far better than a keyless by a top modern maker, but no-one seems to want it. Sad.
I like Rudall patent heads and see them as an interesting piece of pre-Victorian engineering. One flute I have came with both a working patent head, and a standard head joint, it cost £1200 ($1593). Another with a patent working head joint cost £1500 ($1991). They cost extra when new, but as Jem said they don’t seem to increase the value of the flute per se these days, but they are a nice old fashioned touch I think. They make the flute heavier, but I don’t find that to be a problem, and the flute I use has a good bottom D. It doesn’t leak, has new pads from Jon Dodd. I believe Patsy Moloney usually plays a Rudall with a patent head. There may be others too
I went to the G&H auction and bid for the Rudall & Rose but I dropped out long before the final bid. I made the mistake of taking my wife who doesn’t share my enthusiasm for flutes.
R&R 4417 was part of a collection of many musical instruments in the estate of Maurice Byrne F.S.A who died 1st Sep 1916 age 76. Maurice was a member of the Galpin Society for most of his life, was editor of the society’s Journal and contributed several articles. He kept a card index of his instruments which is now in the Galpin Society archives. I contacted the archivist who kindly sent me the following information :
Maurice Byrne’s card index was handwritten by him with notes when he acquired an instrument. His widow is happy for new owners to be informed of his card notes.
His card for the Rudall & Rose flute has:
• Simple system, silver keys & end plate, no box.
• Automatic adjustment of cover position when extending instrument.
• 1959 (presumably bought then)
• Repaired by Michael Wright 1969
• Knight, Bath
• 4417?
• Also its inscription: Rudall & Rose No. 1 Tavistock Street Covent Garden London
If he died in 1916, his widow is especially long-lived. 