This is interesting - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170129574406&fromMakeTrack=true
It is essentially a normal 6-key simple-system piccolo body provided with a whistle head (may well originally have had a flute head as well to alternate). The length given suggests it is likely to be at a high pitch rather than A=440, but until you try them, you can never be certain with these things! Might do OK for an Eb if it is sharper than A-445. Probably overpriced (certainly compared to an ordinary HP piccolo of this type) but the whistle head looks pretty well made and is quite unusual, so who’s to say? If it plays OK at A=440, it could be a treasure.
Yep, it definitely ain’t a recorder. It is not uncommon (not common either, mind) to find C19th 1-6 key piccolos or even sometimes flutes with an alternate flageolet head - true English flageolet type heads, that is, with the wind-cap and ivory (usually) beak. I can’t recall seeing a plain whistle head like this before. It would undoubtedly play just like a whistle in terms of fingering/overblowing, though obviously with the facility of keys making it fully chromatic without cross-fingering.
It looks like a csakan or czakan – essentially a keyed recorder, but with a variety of fingering systems. This one looks like it has 6 top holes, so it may be a simple system with keys. A 19th century invention, they continued to be made through the 1930s, so this one may be A440 after all. I’d also suspect it sounds more recorder-like than whistle-like.
