I don’t know anything about this flute nor the person selling it; maybe Jon knows more since he’s cleaned up a few Fentums. This one is quite different to mine, this one has wide bands, and may or may not be sterling silver.
And here’s a T Prowse Hanway St, London. I don’t know anything about this one either, nor the person selling, except that the flute has the Hanway St address and therefore was quite probably sold by Prowse at Prowse’s music shop (however that doesn’t make it a Nicholson Improved flute, it’s just an 8 keyed T Prowse):
Looks like the Fentum has potential to be a nice flute. Probably has a lower tenon replacement, on the upper section, that is the reason for the silver band. They cutoff the original tenon, then cut a socket and put in a two way tenon,or glue in the new one. Probably nickel keys, but the rings might be silver.
The Prowse has been around on eBay for quite a while and is on sale at Hobgoblin’s Birmingham (GB) shop. I know someone who went to try it a few weeks ago who said it was pretty good, but not quite what he was looking for nor within his budget.
The Fentum has an old repair band around the lower end of the upper body, over the G# key area - looks very tidily done, but who knows what it covers?! Could be Jon’s suggestion, or to compress a bad “shake” type crack. The metal of that does not match the remainder of the rings - it is much yellower and clearly GS/brass. It is hard to tell from the picture whether the rings and keys are sterling or GS. Remember my Fentum/Eastes which looked on eBay to be more likely sterling but, on cleaning up, proved to be a relatively pale/whiter GS alloy rather than a brassier one. The vendor is Phil of Phil’s Historical Instruments, who we have met on the Rudall Piccolos Thread! He’s a dealer - buys at auction etc., adds big mark-up and resells on eBay, doesn’t attempt any restoration or value-added work of any kind, and from my interaction with and observation of him, he as yet has little expertise in antique flutes (viz his comment that the repair band is a “replacement”!): but those points aside, he’s genuine enough - you’ll get your goods if you buy from him. This is one of his less outrageous/off target asking-prices, though I don’t think I’d pay quite that much for a “fixer-upper” with head and barrel cracks and an old repair. The dimensions are good for playability at modern pitch. It should be a fine flute once fixed up.
I don’t know about the price, I’d say it depends on how good this particular flute is, and the only way to know it is to try it or make it try to some good player you trust. I think the price is higher than other Fentums sold on ebay (right?).
Modern flutes with the same number of keys (eight) are usually much more expensive, although there are a few makers that make 6-keyed flutes at a similar price.
When I look for an old flute I usually try to get it (when it’s in working conditions) at less than 1000 euros, except for original Rudalls and Prattens that are usually much more expensive (I don’t have the money for them).
I’d like to know too. I’ve only heard the older vintage romantic flutes on youtube clips. I don’t get out to see any flautists play in concert much either.
I figure it’s less of a risk to buy a new modern (conical bore, keyed) flute from one of the small independent flute makers. If you follow the forum thread here, the modern independent hand-made flutes hold their resale value very well. That kind of is a dampener, if you’re hoping to get into one.
As for whether the price of an old flute is justified for the flute … who knows? Perhaps from a shop…on ebay…errrrr. Prepare for a 100 things to go wrong with it before you can get to love it. Or maybe hit lucky and it will play, perfect and pitch beautiful, like a hand-made modern one, right out of the box
Pamela, it’s pretty common for cocus to get referred to as “rosewood” by antique dealers and modern instrument dealers who don’t know their stuff with regard to old flutes. OK, Hobgoblin ought to know better, but… are we surprised? In their defence, knowing it is cocus is a pretty specialist thing and it does look like other rosewoods/within the range of woods that get so described - after all, “rosewood” is a cabinet-making term and isn’t (so far as I understand) species specific. It may even be that cocus would count as a rosewood in cabinet-makers’ terms and only woodwind makers found (specific use for) its special properties different from other similar looking woods.
