Beautiful 9 key antique flute on Ebay

Irish Flute
1

Hi!
Just stumbled into this auction on Ebay.de
Very nice looking flute by Felchlin A Berne(1830) with cool case.
Seem to be needing a bit of repair though.
If I had any cash to spend myself I would have kept quiet about it and placed a bid myself and
hoped that nobody else noticed it :smiling_imp:

/MarcusR

2

While that is a pretty flute, it looks much more like a late 19th century flute than an early 19th century flute to me.

Were post mounts in use in 1830?
Screws in the post mounts also seem to be a later item than pins in post mounts.

What about rollers on the C/C# keys? Those seem newer, too (you can only see them on the ebay page).

Then again, I could well be wrong since I’m not a specialist in antique flutes…

Eric

3

What kind of white material was used to made the rings? Imitation ivory?

4

Hi Eric!
I believe you are right about the age, googled on the name of the maker and the date is more likely to
be 1930 than 1830. I don’t have a clue about when pinned key work started to evolve but I know
there are people on this board that can tell. Oppose to many others here I have always liked pin
mounted keys better than block mounted for flutes, but that’s just from an esthetical point of view.
I still think it is a very, very nice looking flute and I just thought I post a link to it here.
Being of later date would however improve the chance of A = 440 instead of 420, or?

edit:
BTW, the other FELCHLIN flute I found was out of boxwood with 1 key. Will sell for $4000.

Cheers!

/MarcusR

5

Hi Marcus,

1930 or slightly before then does seem more appropriate. I do agree with you that the flute looks very nice. Post mounts don’t bother me, either, but I don’t have a real preference (although posts are easier for me to work with).

I’m guessing it’s more likely, if not certain, to be at modern pitch if it’s from the early 20th centure. The price sure was good the last time I looked at it.

Eric