Antique Rudall & Rose Flute Covent Gdn London - #4921 Item number: 130255475715 just went on eBay for £1870 - to the Olwells. It does need some TLC (head crack through embouchure, but not a bad one, plus short F block needs a minor rebuild; then a general overhaul, clean and repad will see this beauty back in action. Good to see it has gone to someone who will take proper care of it - and presumably then sell it on. The generally depressed market (in everything!) is illustrated by this price, though! I think that is well under what a genuine original R&R which is eminently playable (after some restoration work - so allowing some discounting for that) should be fetching!
OK Jem, I’ll play. 
I’m no expert on antique R&R prices, but what do you think Olwell would charge you for the needed repairs and restoration? By the time you add it all up, the “bargain” price you say it went for, really wasn’t a bargain, maybe just a “below market” price for one in playing condition (if it was), but then it isn’t, from what you said.
It might include the making of a new headjoint too, like the one Arbo sold recently to really make it play in tune.
Now if someone bought it that can do restorations himself, for a flute he wants to play and not resell, then maybe it went for a reasonable (or quote “depressed market”) price.
Just my immediate thoughts-nothing more. It just doesn’t seem it went for a cheap price, that’s all.
Be well, Barry
I thought it a good price for a flute in this condition.
Mmmm, FWIW, I wasn’t trying to start a flame war on flute prices… However, and whilst absolutely recognising David’s authority in this area, these are my feelings about R&R prices:-
First, unlike some here - David himself, David Levine, Hammy, the Olwells et al - I’m not in the market at that level of finance, though I might one day aspire to be, so I’m a relatively impartial onlooker, though maybe influenced by what I would like to believe my own R&R is worth, not that it will ever be up for trade!
I start by considering what a fully 8-keyed flute would cost from one of the top current makers - I haven’t had time right now to do a proper check (so may get shot down) but have the impression that (ignoring waiting time issues) one is looking at prices in the £2,500 region for Wilkes, Grinter, Olwell etc. Those of the not-necessarily-inferior-but-with-as-yet-less-kudos makers are (if they offer an 8-key) mostly around or above £2K.
Whilst many antique flutes are clearly not going to compete at that level of price, and even allowing for the fact that nowadays with a good, reliable supply of modern made, high standard instruments, the antique market is less competitiive than when it was the main or only way to acquire a good flute, I find it hard to believe that a good, fully ready-to-play R&R could or should be worth less than the ball-park top-end new-made equivalent. There is still a collectors’ element of the antique market (and maybe beginning to be one in the new makers’?), which may indeed be becoming the more dominant factor once again as more players look to new-build rather than antique, reducing that pressure on the market. (Historically, until c1970 there was relatively little player interest in the antiques, it was mostly a collectors’ market, than the explosion of ITM pushed up the player interest and the prices, then the modern makers came along…)
So, if a top-end new-made flute is c£2.5K, good original R&Rs should start from around that (ignoring the current economic climate).
As for the example which is the subject of this thread, and I’m only going on what I can deduce from the pictures here, I should say that it looks as though it has probably been being played as it is, at least fairly recently… it needs a clean and repad and so-on - routine stuff - and it needs a head crack fixed (not too messy a one, so not too bad a job - the embouchure should be as good as new) and a small block repair. Let’s say £300-400 max to get it up to optimum condition. On that argument, it didn’t massively under-achieve in its recent sale price, no. Its ultimate repaired value will partly depend on how good a player it actually is once fixed up, and who better than the Olwells to do that? The fact it has had a head crack will mean it won’t ever quite reach the value of an equivalent perfect example, of course.
OK, all this is a bit fantasy land, maybe, but perhaps explains my thinking… In the end, supply and demand rule, of course.