chancing upon a classic set of pipes

[john]

I've heard of pipemakers in the old days coming upon classic sets in junk stores (pat sky and geoff woof for instance)- that would be my dream but i don't think it's ever going to happen - has anyone ever had that good fortune?

[PJ]

In about 1995 or 1996, I remember seeing an old full set for sale in a music shop in Dublin. It was in very rough condition, but reg keys and bits in a box. The asking price was 1,500 pounds. I don't know who made it or what ever became of it. I had just received my first practice set, I was broke and knew nothing about pipes (I still don't) so I wasn't tempted.

[RLines]

I've had a couple of strokes of good fortune over the years. Not exactly walking into a junk shop and finding them, but still lucky all the same.

About 6 months after I first moved to Sligo in 2000, I saw a set of pipes for sale in one of the local Donegal papers. I drove up to Ardara, and ended up buying a 3/4 Tadhg Crowley concert set from the 1930s from the local publican who was selling them. Very reasonably priced as I remember. Less than I had paid for the Kirk Lynch half set I was playing at the time. I played the Crowley set for about 10 years before I sold them.



More recently here in the UK, about 3 years ago I acquired a full set set of 19th century C sharp pipes, which had been found at an estate sale in London by an antique furniture dealer based in the north of England. By a lucky sequence of circumstances I found out about the set (the antique dealer wasn't 100% sure what they were) and purchased them from him a few weeks later. I had no desire to take advantage of him, and explained what they were, and we agreed a price we both felt was fair. Those pipes are currently with Joe Kennedy being restored, and I will be travelling to Canada in February to collect them.




Rick

[Jeff Cullen]

In 2008 someone contacted me that had a set of pipes she had found in the attic of her father's home. They had belonged to her grandfather. It was a 4-reg set of c. 1915 Brennan pipes with the maker's name and address stamped on the mainstock. It was a great find and was an enjoyable restoration and a good learning experience. I eventually sold them, but the cost of acquisition and restoration exceeded the value by a fair amount. I don't regret it though.
I have many stories of finding vintage highland pipes. I acquired over 40 sets of vintage pipes over an 8 year period. Three of those sets are now in the National Museum of Scotland.

[RLines]

I thought people might be interested in seeing the old C sharp set I found (pictured earlier in this thread in pieces) now fully restored. I picked them up from Joe Kennedy when I was in Canada last week. The chanter, drones and mainstock date from the early 1800s, while the regs are from the early 20th century.

Apologies for the poor quality photos. Happy to take some better ones if anyone is interested.

[tommykleen]

Any idea who made that set? It suggests O'Mealy and NOT O'Mealy. Quite the banana on the bass reg. Or is that by design? Any other clues about this set you wish to share?

[RLines]

The set is clearly the work of two different makers, although it bears no makers' marks we could find. So it's a bit of guesswork and I'm open to suggestions.

One possibility for the older parts (chanter, drones, mainstock) is Malcolm MacGregor, a Scottish pipemaker based in London who made pipes up to c. 1820. The work has a number of similarities with MacGregor pipes in the National Museum of Scotland. One particularly distinctive element is that it has an unusual triple bored bass drone, which to my understanding was a technique invented by MacGregor (apologies again for the blurry photo, but you get the idea of how it's made).



That said, the chanter is a bit longer (approx 386mm) than the MacGregor chanters in the National Museum (374mm).

When I found the set I thought the regs might possibly be O'Mealy. But after having them in the shop, Joe is of the opinion that they are actually a well executed O'Mealy copy done by a pipemaker working around the same period. Whoever made them clearly had talent. The precise machining and dove-tailing of the brass plates and keys alone is quite an accomplishment, and shows he definitely had technical skills. And musically they are solid too, in tune and play well with the rest of the set. But Joe finds the turning of the ivory on the regs not nearly as fine as one would see on O'Mealy sets.

And yes the bass reg is bent, and not by design I imagine (the drones and regs are boxwood stained black, the chanter is ebony). It still plays just fine though, fortunately.

[myles]

A O'Mealy copy - might they be by William Hamilton? Would fit with an overall Scottish provenance.

Hamilton, from Maryhill, made mostly smallpipes but also made some O'Mealyesque uilleann pipe sets apparently. I've found an article which said he corresponded with Leo Rowsome on pipemaking matters.

[RLines]

Yes Hamilton could be a possibility. A previous discussion on Chiff suggests he learned pipemaking from O'Mealy, which would explain the good quality of the copy.

However, Chris Bayley noted in another discussion that 'Instead of riveting plates to the regulator bodies [Hamilton] formed them as a 'u' and cut a matching groove in the bottom of the regulator to locate them.' The plates on these pipes are dovetailed and riveted to the reg bodies, in the style of O'Mealy and Taylor. But perhaps Hamilton made regs using more than one technique?

I've never seen any of Hamilton's work myself, outside of a grainy photo in an old An Piobaire from which it is difficult to glean much detail, so can't offer any knowledgeable comment. Perhaps others can add more insight, as Hamilton seems a reasonable possibility?

Thanks

[tommykleen]

There was a set attributed to Hamilton on the Dutch Uilleann pipers' club website some years ago. And yes, the reg keys were held in place by U-shaped brackets dovetailed into the bottom of the reg. Also I seem to recall the ends of the touches were very square, much like your set. It had a spherical "puck".

[myles]

Hamilton is elsewhere credited with having been the first to use the u-shaped reg key brackets. Which could I suppose mean that he only developed them later in his career after having trained with Mealy. I also note that he made McNulty's pipes; there is something very McNultyish about those touches.

There are apparently quite a few Hamilton Northumbrian pipes about, I wonder if it would be possible to look for any similarities of workmanship. I don't suppose anything was recorded about the previous owner that might suggest they, or the instrument, had spent time in Scotland, or the north-east, even?

[gregorygraham]

Rick,

Any chance of posting a sound recording of this newly restored set? Would love to hear them. Coincidentally, now that Joe's got your restoration out of the way, he's making progress on my new C drones. Yeah!

[RLines]

You are right myles that the U-shaped brackets could have been a later development. Any ideas what years Hamilton was actually producing sets? I know that at the time I bought these pipes they had been without reeds since at least 1951, so certainly predate that year, perhaps by a good deal.

Kevin Rietmann posted a pic of McNulty playing his Hamilton set a few months ago. Hard to tell how the plates are attached, but you are right that the edges of the keys themselves are squared as with my set.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32222&p=1094326&hil ... y#p1094326

And unfortunately I have no record of previous owners. I got the set from an antique dealer. He bought them at an estate sale, and when I inquired about the previous owner the dealer said the man he got them from wasn't a piper, but rather a collector of unique old objects and curios. So no idea from whom that gentleman acquired them.

Greg I will gladly post a sound clip. I'm still fiddling with the balance to get them where I want them. Once that is done I will record something.

[myles]

Well going on the little bit of info I can find it looks like Hamilton was a piper in a regiment during WW1, would guess that 1920s would be a possible start point....He was still working until the 1960s. However if he later developed a distinctive reg key style this could, I suppose, be an earlier one?

All wild speculation of course but he seems a good candidate given the Mealyesque style, general time frame, etc...how many people in the country could have knocked out an in tune set of regs? I find these unsung but dedicated craftsmen fascinating.

[RLines]

I've been doing a bit more digging and asking around, and am suspecting that my regs in fact are not by William Hamilton. The couple of photos of his pipes I have been able to find (one from Pat D'Arcy's site and one provided to me by Chris Bayley) show that, on these sets anyway, Hamilton made tenor regs with 4 notes. My tenor reg has the usual 5 keys.

Hamilton also seemed to use a rather distinctive angled-bend in some of the larger keys, which again mine don't display. So even leaving aside the different designs of the plates, there are other elements as well that seem not to match.





Not definitive of course, as it still begs the question of who (apart from Hamilton) in the UK would have been producing good quality O'Mealy style regs in the 1930s/40s?

I think this may remain an unsolved yet pleasant mystery.