Been listed for a while, why is the price so low? It is also getting close to the end.
Lewis
You should have quietly bid on it, now there will be 60 fluters going for it… 
Looks nice!
the seller seems new to flutes, and s/he started with a nice masterpiece
for somone ‘new to flutes’ they surley know how to take the right pictures… tinfoil hat
mmm… £4,100?
Not such a surprise, Chris - did you look at the Q & A section at the bottom? I asked for specific extra pics becasue the original few weren’t very helful - and even those new ones were not wonderful (poorly lit, ill-focussed), though they did show what I wanted to know - after downloading and manipulation! I also got a fair bit of other info on its dimensions which the vendor didn’t publish.
It went for £4,100.00 - somewhat over the top, I feel, even for an apparently pristine example. I expected between £3 - 3.5 k as reasonable, maybe £3.7k absolute tops. I was bidding, acting as a proxy for a friend who doesn’t eBay trying to buy it (no money myself or I’d have been in for it personally!), but someone else was prepared to go to way beyond reasonable price… We’re naturally disappointed, but not too much so at that final price! I sincerely wish the winner joy of it and hope it has gone to a player!
Aye 4.100 sterling. Seems like a nice flute, no cracks according to the seller. I assume it’s a late model Rudall so prehaps it’s easy to play in tune with it self with A=440? I bid up to 2.300 sterling 
and was surprised to be the highest bidder until 5-6 seconds before the auction ended, when the bid shot up from 2.300 to 4.100 sterling. I was relieved though as I don’t really need a Rudall, although 2.300 would have been an ok price. Good luck to the winner and I hope the flute is a good one 
although no serious bidder in their right mind will be bidding at auction until the last minute (saleroom or online) 
Jezzuz in a biscuit… that’s the better part of seven grand U.S.
That flute had better come WITH a player.
Way too much… way too much.
I hope it did go to a player and not a dealer/non playing collector
No room in this kind of pricing for us poor music folks.
I wonder if there is a special reson for the price. Who was the RC maker would be recorded on the factory records that are in existance, I know someone who has them. These would also record who it was sold to originally. Perhaps a special owner? Anyone here have extra info?
Hi,
Some of us don’t stand much chance to be the high bidder on ebay when you are up against people who are bidding for Mr Fatlow, If the flute is a Rudall & Rose, or a Rudall Carte and is in prestine condition, then Mr Fatlow likes those flutes, and always remember Mr Fatlow is not concerned about the money or how high the bidding goes. hey no problem there with money.
He only wants perfectly and totally clean (no repairs) RR flute’s,
@glinjack - I don’t really sympathise with your seeming sour grapes! (Advance apologies if I’ve misinterpreted your last post.) With any premium product, either you’ve got the money or you haven’t! Personally, I have not. I wish I had but I haven’t, and that limits what I can do. No sour grapes.
I don’t condone things going for way OTT prices, but neither do I rejoice when I see them go for less than they should be worth, nice though it is to be the beneficiary of such a bargain. I’ve been keeping a record of R&R sales from eBay for about 2 years now and several have gone for under £2k, quite a few more for between £2-2.5k - all somewhat under-value, IMO, save for those whose condition may have been compromised. If your budget is below the £2.5k mark, there are quite a few antique flutes coming to market over time which rightly belong in that price bracket, as well as most of the modern makers full 8-keyers being in that price-zone. You’re not restricted for choice. Some of the lesser name antiques may be just as good as R&Rs. Of course, now and then some lucky sod will go out and buy an old trunk with half a dozen good antique flutes in it for a few quid, but like ploughed fields full of Saxon gold, that is fantastic - real world possibility yes, but literally fantastic. In general, you have to pay the going rate and from time to time competition for a particular item will push it above the going rate just as at other times a dull market will undervalue it.
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220513520633&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
…there’s another one.
Yes Gabriel, a nice one and it’ll probably go for the normal asking price as it’s already reached over 3.000 euros. I wouldn’t mind stumbling across a Rudall at a flea market or as Jem mentioned, finding a trunk in an attic somewhere with a Rudall within . Michael Flatley’s welcome to collect as many Rudall’s as he can, he’s a good flute player and I assume he plays them, there are plenty of other fine flutes out there for us paupers.
I assume it’s a late model Rudall so prehaps it’s easy to play in tune with it self with A=440?
Hogwash.
I have #984, one of the earlier, and it plays at 440 with less than 1/8" pulled out…in tune up to high E and down to Low C with itself and the strobe. Medium holed flute. Boxwood.
It doesn’t matter where in the numbering system the flute is for it to play in tune with itself or 440. It mixes and matches up and down the scale of serial numbers.
The tuning, too, is in the lip more than the flute. Flutes don’t play out of tune with themselves unless someone’s blowing into it.
Of course it is possible to get those records from Robert Bigio and a flute of this period would be in the extant ones - had my friend won the flute I would have pursued that… I’d still love to know, but won’t be chasing the info.
I presume this was a newly appearing (to modern eyes) flute unless David Migoya can enlighten us otherwise, (did you already “know” this one, David?) so I doubt there was any “special” reason of the sort suggested. I was not aware of any such. It sufficed that the flute was in very good condition with original case, large-medium holed, sterling silver fitted and, from its dimensions, post “flat foot” in design without being a serious HP design - just about all one might desire on the face of it!
i wonder whether the bidders knew they were bidding in Pounds Sterling.
It’s an easy mistake to make on a sniper program, putting in what you want to pay, only to see it placed as GBP rather than US$.
Imagine the surprise!~!
ya know…I like that explanation!
the last two just seemed so over the top 
Sorry if this is a little of topic but it was an ebay auction.
Since ebay changed the display of bidders so it only shows bidder1,bidder2 etc I have been suspicious. Before they showed the bidder id’s. If a bidder puts an automatic maximum bid on which is a fair bit above the next highest bid does ebay now generate a faulse bidder to fill the gap.
If many people have won auctions with their winning bid being substantially below their maximum ebay are playing straight. This happened to me a few times when id’s were still shown. Any one experience here? I think the seller sees the bidders id’s so they would be able to check if they wanted I guess.
The eBay bids system hasn’t changed, nor do they “invent” bidders. As you say, vendors can see IDs. Whether bidders place advance bids with high limits in the eBay system or use a sniping program, the bids only advance by the minimum required “raise” at each level (these are graduated - see eBay’s own info…), so a jump such as in the present case and the others you mention only shows the last two actual prices between the last two bidders and omits the intervening alternating over-bids between them above the top bid of the other highest bidder that would have happened in milliseconds when the snipe(s) landed at the near-close of the auction. The highest bid of the penultimate bidder shows, but that was his limit and it was surpassed by the winner at one minimum (at that price-level) “raise”. Only the winner knows what his ceiling was and whether he had pre-bid with a high ceiling on eBay or was sniping. Had he not had competition, he would have won at one “raise” above the other (3rd) highest bidder’s ceiling and there might not have been any apparent “jump”. No mystery, no shenanigans, nothing underhand or untoward about it.