Nice Tavistock Rudall Rose on ebay

[jemtheflute]

#5108 relisted on eBay, starting price now under £2k, no Buy It Now this time.

[Thalatta]

Including the original case with what seems like an original certificate. Very nice photo too. Makes it still more interesting...

[RudallRose]

sadly the certificate is all chewed off (why? i've never seen this happen).
obviously someone wanted to have it removed from the case (likely long ago).
the motive? I can speculate:
these certificates, if you'll look closely at the remants, at this stage of the production have an elaborate cartouche on them, on the right side, into which is placed the actual serial number of the flute inside.
It's the only time Rudall (the firm, not the man) did this. The original certificates were without serial numbers, merely the statement that the certificate was to guard against forgeries. Funny, though, there was no way to ensure the flute inside the case and the certificate were matched. So, theoretically, it was still possible to have a forged Rudall sitting inside a legitimate case.
So it's likely that this flute, #5108, is not the flute that first went into that case since the numbers would not have matched between flute and certificate. And rather than alter the number on the certificate (and you'd certainly not alter the number on the flute) or remove that portion where the certificate number was located, the owner (back then....I'm not suggesting the current owner) simply tried to removed the entire document.

Here's a photo (thanks Terry McGee) of the initial certificates:


Can't seem to locate a web photo of a certificate with the cartouche. Anyone? I know I have them at home.

I don't have access to my database here at work, but I do have noted when the "cartouched" certificates first appear.

The only signature that appears on the certificate of the eBay flute for sale is that of George Rudall....and not all of it.

There's a name on the lower right (or what appears to be a name). The owner when that box was sold with a flute inside?

[Thalatta]

Here David, but it's not my flute. It was sold on Ebay with the half o' flute a while back by the Olwell shop:

[RudallRose]

there you go.
yeah, it flipped at one point, i think after Rose left the shop (but was still alive) and the signatures were no longer Rudall on the left and Rose on the right, but the firm name (which was kinda cheap).
I had a flute once that had it signed "Rudall Rose Carte & Co"
The one Olwell had sold clearly was Rudall Rose & Co (i think they had purchased the shop of Thomas Key at that point.....wasn't that the Charing Cross address?) and Carte wasn't yet a partner.
I've only seen small flutes (piccolo, etc) marked as Rose, Key & Co. and had the unicorn head of Key on it.

[LorenzoFlute]

My HY Potter has the unicorn head also...

[groxburgh]

David I think you are getting carried away with a conspiracy theory. The damage to the label looks like moth larvae or silverfish damage. Possibly they are more interested in eating the glue that the label is stuck on with rather than the label itself. see here: http://www.jfplus.com/clothes-moths.php
I don't see any reason to suspect it has been deliberately done by someone trying to hide the fact that the label and flute didn't have matching serial numbers.

Cheers
Graeme

[RudallRose]

graeme
not at all. I wasn't suggesting this to be the only plausible explanation.
Though i have to say that I've never -- and i do mean never -- seen any damage to a certificate like this one, and nothing to the surrounding or underlaying felt cloth.
Otherwise I'd likely buy into the theory, Graeme.
The certificate style, shape and make of the case and the flute itself are of the right period for it all to coincide.
Anyways.....if the flute fits the case perfectly in each slot, then clearly it was made for this flute.

[jemtheflute]

Well, #5108 went for just under £2100. That is an amazing bargain for such a flute in ready to play condition! (And especially so given some of the prices being asked for modern maker 6-keyers just now! - they won't be "better" flutes than this one!) Because it looked like no-one might bid, I actually stuck a holding snipe on it rather than let it go unsold - not that I can really afford it, but for £2k it would have been worth scraping it up somehow as an investment. Someone else was on the same wavelength with a higher limit! We were the only bidders. Saved by the bell! But what a shame for the vendor - that flute should have been in the £3k-3.5k bracket in a normal market. (Perhaps if s/he hadn't over-priced it in their initial listing they might have got nearer the "right" money.) Market conditions currently sure are odd. I mean, recently quite a few probably decent English flutes which should have gone in the £150-300 range for restoration have achieved £400-600 - rather more than they should have (let alone in a depressed market), yet a top level R&R underhits by 1/3-1/2...... Lucky buyer. I hope s/he's a player.

[James_Alto]

Well, #5108 went for just under £2100.

Nuts. That's a summer bargain I really could pass up!

That's a lot of money, particularly for someone like me who plays for fun only. Granted, it's cheaper than my Boehm flutes, but I had to save up since I left high school for them. Plus I'm not the kind of person who can adhere to just one kind of flute..curiosity gets the better of me!

My guess is that only people (like you) who know what they're doing, would wager that kind of money on an old wooden flute. Maybe a company who specialise in repairing these, and buy them up from collectors to restore them. Anything with a visible hairline crack, pinned or not, would make me click onto a different webpage, although one flute teacher I had, would always tell me that his flutes sounded better once they had cracked (his idea of 'wearing them in'?), whereas I always panicked thinking the wood wasn't dried out properly before the flute came into existence ...