Astor wooden / ivory flute help

[brickharbor]

Hello, I have an Astor wooden / ivory flute and I'm trying to find out some more information about it and it's value, it was found in a 'rand' box which I have never heard of or seen before.
Cheers.

[Casey Burns]

I find Astor flutes intriguing historically, especially ones that were sold in New York. These links might be interesting http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... or-is-born and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_family.

As to its value, check eBay, Sothebys, and perhaps other auction sites. It seems hard to place a value on things these days, especially antique instruments.

Its what someone will pay. I've seen some real deals lately. Mostly its a buyer's market as the global economy collapses and few have money to spend on luxuries. But then, last weekend a Fender "notcaster"guitar that was given by Fender himself to Les Paul was auctioned in Los Angeles for $216.000. Probably purchased by a one percenter!

Interesting that J. J. Astor himself came to America originally to sell his and his brother's flutes, and made a fortune in furs instead, using the profits from flute making to invest in this venture. A true One Percenter in his day! I don't think that any of us modern makers should pursue a similar career path change, and should stick to flute making. Beavers are generally protected along with most other fur bearing mammals popular in the fur trades of the 19th century. I doubt if there is much of a market for Chinchilla fur and besides, we'd have PETA after us in a New York minute. Unless we could prove that its all made from roadkill.

Casey

[Rob Sharer]

Sorry, what?




Rob

[jemtheflute]

As it appears to be in exceedingly good condition, depending on what pitch it plays at and how good its internal tuning (intonation) is, it might be of some interest to period instrument performers. In early C19th Britain - the probable period of your Astor, pitches were generally rather lower than nowadays, though not as low as in the Baroque era, so it is likely to be lower in pitch than modern Concert pitch (A=440Hz), and thus of little practical interest to most of us here, as although we play either C19th instruments or ones based on them, we play at modern pitch and we tend to prefer instruments of a somewhat later design phase, with bigger holes.

Your flute is made of boxwood with, as you know, ivory fittings, and it appears to have silver keys. It is a high quality instrument of its kind - the carefully metal-lined keyways in the blocks are a sign of a superior product. The keys all have Potter style pewter plugs.

One of our members who holds Langwill's Index of historic woodwind makers should be along in due course to give you the basic info on Astor - dates for addresses, etc. which should give you some idea of its period. (Edit: oh, here's a webpage which quotes the Langwill entry for Astor!) Stylistically it is last quarter C18th or 1st quarter C19th (I'd guess earlier rather than later in that window). A little Googling on "JJ Astor flute" gets this and more, and on "Astor flute maker" there's still more.

That won't help you value your flute, but it will at least start to fill in the background. FWIW, IMO it is likely to be fairly valuable (depending, as I said, on playability), especially as it appears (OK, I know, only one photo!) to be uncracked and un-warped and undamaged, in its original case...... and it would probably be worth having it assessed by a specialist auction house or a dealer such as Tony Bingham (GB) or the Shoreys (US). You can find out more about how it fits into flute history on both Terry McGee's and Rick Wilson's websites, where there are indeed some references to Astor.

This link has an illustration of a favourite of mine (no, I don't own it) - scroll down to item #329 - a stunningly gorgeous left handed flute by George Astor in flamed boxwood - a somewhat different style of keys than your example and at an unusually high pitch for it's period of manufacture (you never know until you try!). The shown price which that sold for several years ago now may not be too good a guide to the (potential) value of yours (the market currently is rather depressed!) - in that it was L-handed, making it very rare/unusual, but less desirable to most players, more of a niche collectors' thing - hard to say if those factors inflated or pushed down the price or counterbalanced each other!

If you care to post a few more pictures and some measurements - the overall and sounding lengths (centre of embouchure [blow] hole to level with far, open, foot end of assembled flute, all joints fully closed) and Terry's C#-Eb length (see his website), preferably in millimeters, we may be able to say a little more.....

[brickharbor]

Thank you for the replies. Are there any specific photos I should post up? Unfortunately there's no tape measure in the flat, I will try and sort something out.

I did email Tony Bingham but I got a response saying he wasn't interested.

Cheers.

[jemtheflute]

Pictures showing the joints from different "sides" (rotations along long axis) and maybe obliquely end on (need not do them separately) would show the general condition and presence or absence of cracks. That would likely suffice.

Re: Tony Bingham, was that a "not interested" as in "wouldn't wish to buy it for stock", or as in "would not consider evaluating it for a fee"?

I'm not sure who else it might be worth going to for a valuation in GB, though as I wrote, values are mostly rather depressed at present, though with erratic exceptions. Auction houses are, I think, likely to give rather low prices whatever the economic climate. You could have a look through back catalogues of Gardiner Houlgate (Google them) to see if they have sold any Astors and/or similar flutes. You could try Arthur Haswell, perhaps? Whatever, if you're thinking of selling but have no urgency to do so, I'd advise sitting on it (not literally!) for at least a couple of years to see if things pick back up.

Just as an example, a superb Cahusac all-ivory flute recently sold for a rather paltry (given what it is and its provenance) £2,850 on eBay. Bingham currently lists a similar but slightly less remarkable and in slightly poorer condition Cahusac ivory flute for £8k. (Note it is possible that Bingham's one plays at modern preferred Baroque pitch, which would priobably make it more valuable than the eBay one which plays at nearly modern Concert pitch....). Your flute won't be at that level of the market, though, probably by a long way.

[brickharbor]

When I messaged Mr Bingham I did ask about the valuation and interest of purchase and the response I got ignored the valuation and isn't interested in purchasing it himself.

I spoke to someone at Christies and someone from there American team valued it between £300-600 and I spoke to two other people in America and both their estimates were $1500-3500

As I'm not doing so well money wise at the moment I am looking to sell it now.

Having problems embedding the photos, please view them all here http://www.flickr.com/photos/80158606@N ... 7377238380

[jemtheflute]

Ah well. Lovely flute. Good luck with selling it. Your best bet is probably to put it on eBay with a decent/realistic reserve (c £450?), or to try through that website the L handed Astor was on for a while first if you can settle on what you think is a sensible asking price and you're not in too much of a rush.

BTW, where in the world are you?

[brickharbor]

I live in Worcester (England) but currently in London for a few weeks.

Yea I'll try that website and probably eBay, unless anyone on here wants to make me an offer haha.

[jemtheflute]

Here's a very comparable flute currently on eBay - cleaned up and properly set up, of course..... but may be some guide to where it might be realistic to price your Astor, depending on the result, of course! And we still don't know the Astor's playing pitch.....

As for your location - we're not that far apart when you're at home!

[brickharbor]

Sold for £725, would love if mine was worth that.

As I haven't got a clue about flutes I wouldn't know where to start with typing the description.

[jemtheflute]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160831285380

There is, IMO, no way this flute is going to fetch £3.5k under any circumstances, and certainly not in the current market. Not that I don't wish you luck in getting the best possible price for it, but I think that regardless of what reserve you have set (in your own mind if not on eBay), that headline price will simply put most possibly interested people off from even making an offer.

It would be helpful (to you as a vendor as much as to interested viewers), both here and on eBay if you gave the sounding length as that is the most useful dimension to know - the overall length tells us very little. The playing pitch of the instrument is crucial to its value and affects which part of the market (in terms of potential buyers) might be interested in it. No-one in the ITM field (i.e. here) is going to be much interested in it regardless of its pitch (it's the wrong type of flute, too early, but we'd only be interested at all if it is OK for A=440). The possible interest of period instrument performance specialists is just as dependent on where it is suited to playing pitch-wise, and if it plays much sharp of A=430 at its highest/shortest, I doubt they'll value it highly/show much interest. Anyway, you are going to get asked by others, so I strongly suggest you measure from the centre of the embouchure (blow) hole to level with the far, open, foot end of the assembled flute, all sections pushed fully together, in mm. Give that measurement in your listing as it gives some kind of guidance as to the sharpest pitch the flute can be tuned to.

[brickharbor]

I know it wont go for anywhere near that but I can hope I get a good offer.
There's 12 people watching it so far and not one offer.
Thanks for the help, I'll try and edit the listing later with the measurements.

[Peter Duggan]

There's 12 people watching it so far

Doesn't mean they're even thinking of buying (might just be curious)!

[jemtheflute]

There's 12 people watching it so far

Doesn't mean they're even thinking of buying (might just be curious)!

Quite. I'm one of 'em, and there's are plenty of geeks like me with regular searches on eBay who just watch most of what turns up - several of us here on C&F....