Can you help identify this instrument?

Irish Flute
1

I’m visiting this board from
Pennywhistles, and I am hoping that
somebody here might be able to help
me identify this odd little
instrument I have. I picked it up at a yard sale for $5 and when I asked
what it was, the woman said an
“Irish Flute” which it definitely
isn’t, so she didn’t know what it
is, either.

It’s 12-1/2 inches long, with six
oddly-aligned holes on top, and a
7th hole (for the left thumb) is
off-set from the underside so far it is almost on the side. It’s very
heavy and made of metal, bronze in
color, beautifully but “funkily”
engraved and enameled. It has a chin rest, and “Sabine” is engraved below the embrashure in cursive. Although
I can’t begin to get a steady tone,
what I do get seems to be a very
mellow D, even when I can get
volume. It’s a truly lovely
instrument to look at, and
eventually I hope to play it.

Someone suggested it is either a
piccolo or a fife, but it doesn’t
look like either of those, and it
doesn’t seem to be high enough - but the upper octaves may be. I’ve
researched the net (in fact, that’s
how I found Chiff&Fipple) with no
luck. I hope somebody here can help
me out. Thanks.

2

a photo would really help

3

My problem is, I don’t have a camera or scanner so can’t provide a picture, and I only have WebTV, anyway. Mostly, I was hoping somebody would recognize the maker, Sabine. There was a renowned German flautist named Sabine many years ago, but he was classical and this is not the type of instrument he would have made, anyway. If I can find someone with a camera, I’ll see if I can’t try again. Thank you all for the interest you have shown - there has been a lot of hits to this thread.

Good playing, everyone!

4

I searched the name Sabine and only found the person… no reference to an instrument maker.

5

I wonder if it is a decoration, and Sabine is the name of the place where someone visited. JP

6

Hi, just to know… Sabine is a typical German girl’s name, lots of girls in my age (do not ask me :wink: ) were named with it, it is not fashion anymore nowadays same as my name.

The way you describe it, it may be one of these “marching band flutes” which were/are typical here with the offset 7th hole, is it a little mounted? Have a look at ebay.de, there are usually loads of the ones which come in my mind… I hope the picture paste works: http://abacus.sj.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_EBAY_3eb539ffec96a30eb225e3d596/i-1.JPG

Hope this helps
Brigitte

edit: ooops… sorry I have messed up thumb with pinky :slight_smile:… so the flute I am thinking of might be totally wrong… well sometimes it still shows I am not native english speaker :frowning:


[ This Message was edited by: Goldie on 2002-03-20 06:25 ]