I’m a beginner, and I would suggest, for your consideration, the Casey Burns Folk Flute. Before I made my purchase, I made quite a study of the subject and decided upon the Burns Flute. I purchased a Casey Burns Folk Flute which is made out of Box Wood. I’ve been playing for over a year now and I love the Burns Flute. I actually should send the flute back to Casey and have him do the year tune-up thing that he offers for about $40.00, but I would miss it too much at this point. Sounds a little weird I suppose, but none the less true. I guess I’ve advanced to perhaps an advanced beginner (what ever that may be) by this point. I might mention that I found that Casey Burns was quite easy to speak with and helpful. I play other wind instuments and have quite a few (what I consider to be quality instruments, not junk) which I play and my wife, who happens to be a good musician says that the Burns Flute is my best instrument and trust me, she knows everything. 
If you should decide on the CB FF, then I would also suggest you spend a few extra bucks and have him make you an end cap for the head joint, won’t cost you much, won’t make you a great player or alter the sound; it just dresses up the instrument a little. As others have so correctly suggested, what ever you decide, purchase from a quality maker (you get what you pay for) and just keep working at it. Good luck to you and enjoy the journey, it’s fun and it’s worth it in my opinion. Cheers, Don
About the only thing that a CB FF and a Tipple have in common (ignorin’ the traverse flute bit)
is that they both exceptional values for the money.
I started off with a CB FF, and I am still playing it.
Replying to Denny’s comment about taking up the piano, I’v been trying to do that for 40 years now. When I was young, I didn’t have a piano. Now that I am older, I have a piano but have lost some of the musical ambition that I had when I was young. I have my keyboard set up and a book of simple Bach always open on the music stand. Nevertheless, I’m really slow when it comes to reading in two different clefs at the same time. I would like to sight read well enough that I could comfortably read through a whole book of music, something that I was accustomed to do with the classical guitar. However, with the guitar everything is crammed together on the treble clef. I have memorized two Bach pieces on the piano, and since they are the only thing of any significance that I can play, I tend to play them over and over. It’s a good thing that my keyboard has headphones because my wife is sooo tired of hearing those pieces that she is apt to turn up the volume on her crime shows really loud, and then we would have a volume war. Not good.
Yeah, and the piano don’t fit too well in that carrying case…(;o)
I ended up buying the Reviol from Doc. blackwood 3 piece with silver rings and tuning slide also cast bore in the head this was a special order made by Maurice Reviol in November 2007. I know his flutes are supposed to be more difficult to play, but the reviews and opinions sounded good and the price was reasonable..thanks to everyone for the help.