Does anyone know where these can be found in the US? I seen the all black from the C and F reviews and like it much better than the gold diamonds. Are these still even available?
I made mine. The gold decal/paint wore off.
I have one that came from thewhistleshop years ago.
I don’t play a Clarke every day or even every week, but from time to time I get “hungry” for its sound and break it out for a bit.
–James
Just did a search and only found the one with diamonds. The unpainted silver is still available.
That’s probably where I got mine 8 years ago. It sat in a desk drawer until about 2 months ago when the bug bit again. Boy, just think of how good I’d be now if I had been playing all this time… 
KennyChaffin is right. It does not take long for those diamondy things to wear off with occasional playing. Mine is completely black now.
Thanks all. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the diamonds to wear . . .
. . . still waiting . . .
In the early days of C&F, I made a comment about the “hideous” gold diamonds on the Clarke. I heard from Norman Dannatt, who was working for Clarke, who made a good-natured defense of the the gold diamonds. (And, this started, by the way, a long friendship with Norman which persists to this day.) For a brief time, they made an all-Black model, which evidently didn’t sell very well. I blamed that on the fact that they also put a sort of modern-looking logo on it; they blamed it on the lack of gold paint! I asked them to call the model “Dale Wisely’s Naked Black Splendour” but this remained only an unofficial nickname.
Try a quick wipe with some acetone (nail polish remover will do) on a cloth or paper towel (taking all of the usual precautions, i.e., gloves, good ventilation, et cetera). The black coating is a very tough and solvent-resistant material, perhaps a heat-cured powder coating, while the gold is just paint. It comes off very easily.
Buffing with acetone will create a “Dale Wisely Naked Black Slendour”…this is way too much information for me!
Cool, I’ll try that.
I’m feeling a little faint.
Great tip! Thanks. My Original looks a lot cooler now. 
Oh, THANK you for that!!
I can’t wait to have a Dale Wisely’s Naked Black Splendor for my very own!!
Fine-grit sandpaper will also remove the gold paint, and gives the whistle a nice matte finish…Dale Wisely’s Naked Matte-Black Splendor?
Is this going to be one of those things like when they covered every brick row-house in Baltimore with formstone in the 40’s and 50’s because it was the happenin’ thing, and you didn’t want to be the dorky awkward person with a brick house?
No, guess not.
But–mark my words–someday I’ll be selling my gold-diamond-studded Clarke on this forum…and you’ll be climbing all over each other for it.
Mmmm-hmmm.
Well I was real cool with this until Dale’s posting, now I’m afraid to put my whistle to my lips. 
Personally, I didn’t like the diamonds, so I scraped em off, leaving the gold bands and “Clarke” lettering intact. I then pondered how to make the now matte area shine as if they were never there.
I am very pleased with the results obtained as follows:
I cut a standard cotton swab in half, chucked one half up in my battery](http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=760%22%3Ebattery) powered Dremel tool, dipped the cotton swab in some Turtle](http://www.turtlewax.com/main.taf?p=2,1,4,14%22%3ETurtle) Was Polishing Compound (“Restores showroom shine”) and carefully went to work. With about 5 minutes worth of effort, the area where the diamonds were was indistinguishable from the rest of the whistle body! I swapped the remaining half cotton swab and buffed the area a bit more. Then I thoroughly cleaned the whistle to remove any traces of polishing compound.
I used the battery powered dremel rather than my regular plug-in one because the battery powered tool runs at a slower speed. I didn’t want to burn the remaining paint using the gazillion RPM speed of the corded tool.
YMMV, do this at your own risk, no guarantees, don’t blame me, yer on yer own, etc.
The black enamel paint makes that folded seam in the back a lot easier on the thumbs, as well, but the diamonds on the front are what I like best. Gives the whistle character and style.
This forum has a fixation with whistles with all black shafts. 