I notice it (#11081) is from Regent St, whereas my #8626 was the old Holles St address. Anyone between those numbers care to narrow down the address change?
Once we pause in this headlong data acquisition binge, it will be interesting to try to narrow down changes between the makers. So far, the Boosey & Co instruments look pretty standardised in measurements, with the possible and confusing exception of #4646 at the DCM. Might have to detail one of our Washington DC members to slip in there with a tape measure and check my measurements!
Here’s a cylinder body all-covered one. The vendor (principal, not eBay lister) has been in touch with me elsewhere and I happen to know the head is marked “RS Pratten Perfected” and the barrel is marked “Boosey and Sons London 1863” (serial #?). OL is 680mm. It has a barrel crack which has been repaired at some point in the past. It has recently had an overhaul at a mainstream music shop and is playing, but not perfectly - seems it must have some leak(s) somewhere by the description of a flute-playing acquaintance who has tried it. The vendor isn’t a player/flute-wise. I’ve been trying to get the SL and some better photos out of him…
Thanks Holmes. I will snitch one of the images of the rod & axle C & Bb key arrangement to contrast with the block-mounted one I have already. Can you get me the other details needed for an entry for this flute in the table?
Now, do I make out Boosey & Sons in the maker’s mark? Should I also be chronicling which serial numbers were associated with the change in name from Sons to Co? Or has someone already done that for us?
I’ll look in my NLI but they do not tend to list with reference to consecutive serial numbers. Rudallrose might have more detailed information regarding serial Nos and respective stamp?
I’ll get the other data required but I’ll need to meet up with this flute again to do that.
I looked at the data we’ve collected, and we can actually get pretty close on that point. #7446 is so far the highest number reported as Boosey & Sons; 7676 lists Boosey & Co.
Can’t bring to mind one written by anyone at Horniman. I do have Kelly White’s thesis, but she was at Edinburgh. Do have a look, but also can you give us the title and author of the Horniman paper?
for some reason I hadn’t connected Kelly and Arnold, though they co-authored. And how Horniman got in my head. Isn’t that were the log books are now? maybe that’s it.
I was amused at how they claimed the Pratten model was a cylindrical flute bore with finger plates, completely overlooking the import and beginning as an 8key model.
or more importantly that it was Hudson who moved to Boosey in order that the firm would have the Pratten’s perfected. They mention he began the instrument, but that it was Boosey and Pratten who collaborated. Just awful.
I actually have photo evidence, btw, that Pratten had presigned the certificates in the lid and their dates were added later, bringing into question whether he actually tested anything. One in particuar, on a flute sold at one of the major auction houses, has RSPratten signature and his authentication that he’d personally tested this flute on this date…after he was already dead.
Overall i thought their paper was good…just not as precise as I’d like with regard to the Pratten flutes.
Yep, the workshop records (Rudall Carte and Boosey &Co/Hawkes) are all at the Horniman, as well as many instruments from the Boosey & Hawkes collection. Whereas Kelly did her thesis with Arnold up at Edinburgh. She was there in 2002 when I spent the best part of a week at Edinburgh, so we got to know each other. From memory, she’s from a clarinet background, but, hey, nobody’s perfect. I left her my partially-filled loyalty card from the chap who sells coffee in the park nearby. And bought a copy of her thesis from her when she finished up.
I’m hoping that the Horniman gets around to digitising the full workshop records and putting them on line within my lifetime. Perhaps we need to fund a project to achieve this? Any phlute philanthropists out there with some spare cash to splash?
Kelly’s thesis confirms no mention of Pratten in the workshop records.
Woah, data has been really rolling in on this topic, especially from one particular isolated outpost of intense Prattenism! Indeed, I’ve been struggling to keep up, and may yet have failed to milk the incoming data for all it’s worth. Anyway, catch up so far at:
You may wish to read from the top again, as the dramatically increased amount of data has allowed me to make many more observations along the way. There are more and improved images. We also stray into military flutes (with and without the Pratten’s name) and address the question of whether the later Boosey flutes should be regarded as Pratten’s or not.
could a flute be considered a Pratten if it’s no longer marked as such. (And we’re speaking in terms of the time period, not as today where RR and Pratten are typically used to differentiate between the two-body and single-body style).
I would venture that while there is likely a lot of Pratten still in those flutes – after all, that’s the flute they made, though there was a great bit of Hawkes that came in later with the merger – they are not “Pratten” flutes in the perfected sense.
They are Boosey flutes.
The Pratten’s Perfected were then no longer a named model. The question becomes, were those w/o the Pratten name stamped on them any more alike to those that were? The measurements would tell of course.
Pratten’s Perfected flutes run the cycle of 8key up to the monsterous 17key, looking all the bit like a boehm by then.
The books on examination would likely show there are probably a percentage of Pratten’s Perfected 8 key flutes made through those years compared to the output of Rudall & Rose. A guess, based on just a few pages of the record: perhaps 3000-4000 flutes. Maybe even fewer?
What you will notice, though, is how much more uniform the design on the Pratten, with few changes from the first ones produced to the very later ones.
It does appear to be a metal head, Lorenzo. If so, it doesn’t seem to correspond to any of the Pratten models in any of the Boosey catalogues I have - the only flutes with a silver head and lip plate are Boehm models. It’s also possible it may not have a lip plate like modern flutes, but an earlier version such as Carte used. The area surrounding the embouchure is built up by a short ivory or wooden sleeve slid over the head tube. Then a slightly longer silver tube is slid over that, and its two ends swaged down to the head tube, entrapping the wood or ivory sleeve. The embouchure hole is then cut through the whole sandwich. You can see an example of one here, although this is from Clinton’s flute for India:
This system was actually no advantage over the traditional wooden head. The wood or ivory sleeve cracked just like wooden heads of the time cracked, but were inaccessible for repair!
I wonder how realistic the starting price is for a HP flute?
I can also report on another standard 8-key example, property of a (not nearby-dwelling) friend of mine whom I saw at a session over Xmas/NY. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tape measure with me, so couldn’t take any measurements, nor did I get the chance to photograph it, not that there is anything out of the ordinary about it. It is #7443, stamped “Boosey & Sons, 24 Holles St, RS Pratten’s Perfected”. It is cocus with GS fittings and plays at CP with about half the tuning slide extended. It’s a bit battered!
