Anyone up to date on Goldie activities?

Whistle
1

Hiya… after months of deep consideration (well, some pondering), I decided to take the plunge and buy a Goldie low D. I emailed the Goldies about two weeks ago, and sent a follow-up query a few days ago, and haven’t heard back yet. From reading in the forum, I expected to get a response fairly soon.

Is anyone here connected enough to know whether their business is running as usual? Is a slowish response from makers more or less commonplace?

Thanks for any insight!

2

Brigitte (Colin’s wife) is often backed up with emails, so I’d suggest calling Colin directly:
https://www.colingoldie.de/impressum.html

I haven’t ordered a whistle from Colin in a few years (very happy with my NB low D), but from what I gather, he’s actively making whistles.

3

I’m in the same boat, I’ve sent a few emails over the last 3 months to try and place an order and haven’t heard any response. I’ve also tried calling (at 2:00 a.m. my time, for time zone reasons) rather than email, but no one ever picked up. However, I will note that I don’t really understand how to make international calls, so I just clicked the phone number link from a smartphone to place the call.

4

Stiofan and Smish - thanks! It helps to know the experiences of others. I’ll keep trying.

5

Brigitte responded to my email a few months ago. Weird.

6

Yeah I’ve been regularly emailing since march and called like 10 times, no answer. I’m calling from the US so many he doesn’t pick up for international numbers.

7

It’s possible the mail is getting swept up by a spam filter – have you got another email address you could try, NancyWorld?

Obviously it won’t make any difference if they’re up to their eyes in work or taking a holiday, but if you have a mail address with a different provider it might be worth a try.

8

That’s an interesting thought. I normally only use Gmail but I guess I can try emailing from an old “.edu” address.

Thanks!

9

NancyWorld:
I doubt your gmail address is the culprit––I’ve been using two different gmail addresses since 2007 when I bought my first whistle (tenor D) from Colin, though eventually figured out that a phone call is the best way to reach Colin himself. It’s possible Colin and Brigitte are away from home/shop or otherwise unavailable at present.

If you use Facebook, you might post a query on this page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/113405825388647, as some group members might be in touch with Colin.

Otherwise, you could keep phoning during daytime hours in Germany, and see if you can get through that way.

Btw, Big Whistle in Sheffield UK sometimes has new and second-hand Goldies for sale, but not at the moment.

Stephen

10

Hey, all - I hope Big Joe Flute and others who responded saying they’re having trouble getting in touch will see this. I’m not sure how to tag other usernames.

Anyway, I called the number on the Goldie website at around 3 pm Germany time and talked to Brigitte, who is delightful! She said to call using a WhatsApp number because otherwise, the international charges can get horribly high.

So I set up WhatsApp on my phone and used it to call the number she gave me: 011 49 173 940 7519. I reached Colin immediately at that point and we had the BEST conversation!

He explained his whistles, ended by playing 4 of them for me, and I picked the one where the sound made me CRY.

I am so so thrilled! Thanks for your help here, and I hope this helps someone else.

Nancy

EDIT: Re international phone charges, I am in the U.S.

11

THANK YOU!

12

For anyone outside the US, 011 appears to be a US prefix for international calls.

From Europe the prefix for international access is + or 00, then dial 49… etc., 49 being the country code for Germany.