Check out the keywork on this French flute

Sillydill · Post by **Sillydill** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:11 pm

This is a French Nonon flute currently listed on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nonon-Wooden-Fl ... 4608601ecd

What is the F## key (small covered key just above F#)?

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:21 pm

Sillydill wrote:What is the F## key (small covered key just above F#)?

Prolly a helper key to sharpen F#, operated by RH3.

apossibleworld · Post by **apossibleworld** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:08 pm

It just so happens that I played this flute a couple days ago (it was not for sale at the time), and I immediately went and took a photo of that squiggly key. How spectacular. The flute has an amazing sound, deep and dark and mysterious, and very strong for such small holes. I loved playing it. As much as I love block mounted flutes with many extra keys, on a flute like this they are actually smooth and functional!

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:27 pm

Is that just wear on R1 and R2?

LorenzoFlute · Post by **LorenzoFlute** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:29 am

I.D.10-t wrote:Is that just wear on R1 and R2?

There are English Nicholson flutes that have something similar, I guess to help sliding from the hole to the keys.
The flute does look nice. I think it wouldn't sell for even a quarter of the asking price though...

MeMyselfandI · Post by **MeMyselfandI** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 10:09 am

Gabriel wrote:
Sillydill wrote:What is the F## key (small covered key just above F#)?
Prolly a helper key to sharpen F#, operated by RH3.

Are you sure it's not a trill key?

radcliff · Post by **radcliff** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:59 pm

mmmm, it's my kind of thing...

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 1:18 pm

Certainly beautiful, interesting and desirable. Collectable, certainly, and maybe a fine player of its type. But I too seriously doubt it is worth the listing price, or even a fraction of that.

Hup · Post by **Hup** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:38 am

The keys are very oboe-like

apossibleworld · Post by **apossibleworld** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:49 pm

jemtheflute wrote:Certainly beautiful, interesting and desirable. Collectable, certainly, and maybe a fine player of its type. But I too seriously doubt it is worth the listing price, or even a fraction of that.

It's worth some fraction of that!

But seriously, these are flutes that you read about in books and see pictures of, but rarely come up for sale, especially in this condition. I love older flutes with a silver embouchure too, because it seems more likely that the dimensions are unchanged, whether by man or nature.

I just realized that you can probably date this flute by the footjoint, which is influenced by the first "modern" version of this arrangement on the first generation of Boehm cylinder flutes. So even though Tulou and Nonon built flutes of this style earlier, this one is probably from the early 1850s, if I understand right. It doesn't look much later than that, but can't be earlier than 1847.

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Check out the keywork on this French flute

Check out the keywork on this French flute

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Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute

Re: Check out the keywork on this French flute