The whistle was advertised on eBay as a 19th Century French military whistle.
The tube is conical rolled heavy tin, strongly welded along its entire length. The mouthpiece is cast pot metal welded to the top of the tube. Tube is round at the tip, gradually transitioning to a slightly flattened ovoid at the point where its welded to the mouthpiece.
The design is raised, stamped from the reverse before rolling. It consists of two diamonds of four bars each with a dot at each junction. The two diamonds are separated by a circle of eight dots, two of them being the junctions of the two diamonds.Inside the circle are the large block letters RE. Stamped or cut in the center of the upper diamond are the tiny letters EPOSE .Overall, its heavy for its size, esecially at the upper end. There is a small amount of rust on the decorative elements.
Key si “D” but very slightly sharper than modern oncert pitch. I’d describe it as smomewhat fife-like. It is a loud whistle
Nothing useful to contribute, but I wanted to say thank you for showing it to us. It’s certainly a pretty little thing. But I’d test it for lead before playing much on it, particularly if it seems unusually heavy for its size.
I tried googling around with the aid of an online French-English dictionary and the remnants of my high school French, but didn’t find anything useful. But is there a specific French word for tin whistle?
I tried “sifflet” and “flageolet”, neither of which is the word I seem to vaguely recollect.
Failing that, I remember that my mother collecting not only antiques, but also many books for identifying and pricing antiques. Do they still publish such books, and if so, might your library have them?
The only other thing I can think of is to take it to a reputable antiques dealer, and have it appraised, to see if they can identify it for you. Sometimes antique shops or galleries will even have free appraisal days as promotions.
As far as I understand from Peter and others, manufactured whistles of this sort were very common in Europe and the US from the mid-19th century through WW2. A few of the manufacturer names pop up more frequently; others are pretty obscure. Some play well, others are more curios. Sold through music stores, dry goods stores, mail order catalogs, fairs, traveling vendors, etc.
I’m not aware of any authoritative curation catalog from museums or auction houses, so information is sketchy. Unfortunately, they’re of little monetary value and general interest even today, so it’s unlikely that antique dealers will know anything at all about them - certainly no more than the collective wisdom of the Chiff.
The French Flageolet is quite an intriguing whistle in it’s own right ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flageolet ) I’ve seen a few offered in shops or on ebay, none of them in playable condition. Externally they resemble a practice chanter more than a tin whistle, with a beak (mouthpiece0 of ivory, a wide chamber to sequester spit and a bore with four finger an two thumb holes.
To those who mentioned concerns over lead, I tend to take a skeptical POV. On a few old whistles with lead mouthpieces, I’ve always thought it more than adequate to coat the external surfaces with nail polish. On this whistle thee are three possible points of lead contact: The welding seam, the weld of mouthpiece to barrel and the mouthpiece itself. The first two are irrelevant. The third? The mouthpiece is clearly NOT solid lead. It weighs too little for that. Lead could, I suppose, be part of the alloy, which I suspect to be some form of pewter.In any case, I’m not worried. I don’t bite my mouthpieces and a little lip contact with a lead alloy at my age hardly matters - I’ll succumb to something else long before the lead gets me.
Over time I’ve picked up rather a few of these. Most are similar to the Clarke Original in form;and of wideky varying quality, though the decoration was usually fancier.
This one is superior in design and playability (IMO) to any wood-fippled cheap whistle. The only other one I’ve seen that was even remotely like this, with a cast and welded mouthpiece, was this wierd little whistle I gave to Mack Hoover a few years ago. It was tubular rather than conical, red-painted and the area between the tonehole and the first finger hole was wrapped in a piece of cheap leather branded with “Souvenir of Sioux Falls” It was playable if you weren’t too picky.
Chuck,
Peter Laban sent me an email with much info on this whistle. I have forwarded the email to you. However the email was returned to me saying user account unavailable.
I have no objection to making and sharing an abstract of the relevant info - but under the circumstances I won’t do so unless Tommy okays it. I really hate it when people share private information without permission.
I wouldn’t worry overmuch about the lead, either. First, it’s likely tin (Cn) rather than lead. Second, lead itself is not poisonous. It’s the salts of it that are. As long as the metal is clear and clean, it’s safe.
With permission, I pass along the following extremely interesting information:
The whistle is a fairly run of the mill late 19th century whistle. France produced quite a number of whistles between 1880 and the 1920s in metal, bone, and the ‘new’ materials of the day like cellulose and early plastics.
It’s interesting to note these conical ones seem to have been designed to cross finger a full set of chromatic semi tones at least acceptably.
C. Mathieu was a prominent maker of all sorts of instruments, whistle, both cylindrical and conical, among them. Below are three french whistles of this period. The top two are C. Mathieu whisles. one a cylindrical in B and the other a conical in around D. The third is, as far as can be told from a photograph, seemingly identical to the whistle asked about in this thread
Back to this particlular whistle, which astounds me even more in the knowledge that it is 1) At least a century old; and 2) not an expensive or special piece to begin with. The whistle is VERY playable and forgiving, much like a Sweetone but with a rather different tone - warmer and somehow mellower than most metal whistles that I’ve played. The holes are all the same size and have a slightly raised rim, making for surer coverage and, for me, anyway, easier half-holing. I have whistles I paid a lot more for that I don’t like nearly as much.
One thing I just noticed is how wide the blade is - slightly wider than the airway, which is itself wider than on any other high whistle I own.
Thanks to Tommy and Peter for identifying this whistle for me.
