I know there is way loads of controversy over Davy Spillane whistles, I was doing my late night ebay browse and came across a humble listing for a couple of whistle a standard high D with a green top, and an all aluminium low d which if you read the whole listing, the seller got it 8 years ago from Ireland ( THIS IS THE BEST BIT ) it was made, in his words by Davy Spillane himself, if it was how much wonga will you spend?
we should be starting a collection and buy this beauty, forget King Arthurs excalibur, and the Loch Ness monster and any other mythical things you cant blow into and see if Davy is missing one of his whistles.
sponge
I suppose you could blow into the Loch Ness monster but the upper octave might be a tad flat
the ebay pics dont appear to have the flattened of sides to the mouth piece, I checked on Phils site and in the news section there is a photograph of a letter that reads thanks for the whistles phil I really like the low D, perhaps the seller means it was once owned by Davy, although his ebay blurb says it was made by Davy,
I will e-mail him and see what the background is on it, I’ll keep you posted
I suppose Davy could have just bought overtons and chieftains and done a bit of surgery on them, this would make them hybrids and not spillanes though.
when did the old style chieftain first hit the market, as the seller has had it stored for 8 years in the loft, so that would give a rough production date of say 1998/1999, I not sure of all the design changes that happened or when Mr Hardy had his licence to make Overtons revoked, as I fear that is another whole can of worms, I was checking the post on the Spillane whistle last night and it did get a bit heated on the 14 pages that it ran for, although I am sure Cavefish did mention in one post that he had a contact that confirmed Davy did make Aluminium low D whistles,
To me, the one Davy plays in the picture looks to have the flattened sides on the head. The whistle on ebay does not; it looks just like my old style Chieftain I bought in 2000. I wonder if someone could get in touch with Mr. Spillane and ask him to confirm or deny the claim that he made that whistle. At this point, I’m very doubtful.
The other thing is, if it actually is the same whistle Spillane played for Riverdance (and I doubt that because of the picture unless he played more than one which is possible), then it is an instrument that was once owned and played by a famous musician. why is it on ebay for 99 pence? Makes no sense to me.
Davyspillanedotcom is under construction but I am in contact with the seller who is very helpful, so we may have a answer to the mystery,
or it could be another Roswell incident
Oh well… pass me the Good’nPlentys, would ya?
