Found half dozen Elton whistles (US made) in Bogota

Whistle
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I dropped into a local Bogota music shop that is above-average in terms of having a decent array of traditional instruments rather than just electric guitars, saxophones, keyboards and all. They have all the odd regional string instruments like tiples, charagos, bandolas, bandurrias, all kinds of crazy thing with tripled courses and all.

I was looking at their woodwind case, and they had a number of unusual tinwhistles of a type I’d not seen before. I asked what the type of instrument was, and was told “flauta celta”, which makes sense. On closer inspection the half-dozen whistles, some silvery and some gold, turned out to be marked “ELTON - made in USA” with an eagle motif above. I tried out a few, and none really sounded well at first blow, and on some the fipple’s wooden edge was nicked up or burred, thus presumably the problem. But I figured I’d buy one for kicks anyway.

Did a little digging, found almost nothing online except a thread here where someone mentioned Elton was a mid-20th C. importer and manufacturer. The shop said the whistles were “new antiques”, in terms of being an old model but not pre-owned. Are these at all rare/collectible, or otherwise of interest to the whistling community?

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Not “rare” but certainly not common as dirt either. They show up on Ebay from time to time, often in pertty bad shape. I have one that’s all beat up and the finish is corroded off. Plays okay, but is nothing spectacular. I get the feeling these were kind of cheap toy instruments more than anything. Probably with a little work they would sound decent.

If you’re still in Bogota and they have one, preferably a silvery one in D, I’d certainly be interested if they aren’t too terribly expensive.

Neat find, though!

Cheers

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I am indeed still in Bogota and actually going to that store today to order a ronroco (baritone charango). It’s not far, I can swing by whenever. The whistles, 6 or 7 of them, are a mix of silver and gold finishes over some light metal (aluminum?), and again none of them easily sound in their stock form, a couple have slightly rattly fipples. But again, an odd collectible more than a serious whistle.

I’m not inclined to parse them out individually, but if anyone wants to buy the lot and use them as trade fodder or whatnot, I can aim to bundle them up and send them back with a US-bound friend in November.

They all look nearly-new, like some basic box/shelf wear on the finish, but didn’t see any signs that they’ve been used around. No idea quite how these folks came by them, just bought an old box-full somewhere or what. I’ll ask them to see if they have any interesting story behind them.

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I ended up buying all six of them, 15,000 pesos for the first one and 70,000 pesos for the remaining five (about $7 and $30 US).

I asked the owner if she had any more, or had the original box for them. She replied that they can’t get any more like these, she hasn’t seen any new ones of this type come in during the 30 years she’s worked at the shop. The shop is one of the oldest music shops in Bogota, so she reckons her father must’ve bought a larger lot sometime prior to her starting work at the shop. The place has a number of weird old display pieces (African lyres and the like) including a lot of Brazilian instruments like a vintage cavaquinho and Brazilian-made Anglo-German concertina. So I somewhat wonder if he picked up the Eltons in Brazil, or whether they were just in a larger export lot of US stuff, or close-outs, or whatever.

The woman didn’t know Elton was out of business, just thought it was something Colombia didn’t import anymore. I couldn’t track all the brand names she mentioned because some of them were English names pronounced through a Spanish filter, but she said roughly something like “yeah, nobody imports these ones anymore, these were just what we sold before we got the ‘chinos’, and now there’s more selection like [various names including iirc Dixon and Slingerland]”. I’m not sure whether she meant “chino” as in Chinese-made, or something entirely different, but it was my vague impression from the way she described it that some kinds of flagolet or fife are used in some kind of festivities, thus their selling Eltons in the first place.

The Eltons, by the way, were all in key of C, she said they don’t come in any other key. Makes some sense for an export market as a default key, and also if Eltons were big pre-WWII, that was a period where as I understand it Irish music hadn’t entirely coalesced around D, so maybe even the Irish-American market wasn’t bothered by C whistles.

In any case, that’s all the info I have on that. I’m idly toying with the idea of having a friend bring down a half-dozen Sweetones or Generations and put them on consignment with her, just so she has “Celtic flutes” for the next customers. Not sure whether to bring her some Ds, though probably anyone in this town who plays Irish is tuned-in enough to buy them from abroad, or just assume C would be the best seller.


EDIT: the Celtic music scene here is somewhat… niche:

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IIRC from my time in the music retail business (early/mid 80s) … Elton is/was one of those older midwest US companies who, by the late 20th cent, sold odd knicknacks for the music education market - marching band lyres, clarinet ligatures, kazoos, rhythm sticks, etc. Trophy is/was another. They were included in the catalogues of many jobbers (distributors). And they, or at least the name, are still at it, apparently:

http://www.newarkmusical.com/product_info.php?products_id=1837

Before the Irish trad revival, concert C would surely have been the key of choice for “toy” pennywhistles for education. Even Clarke were offering only C whistles then.

BTW Matthew, are you in Colombia for a while, or just visiting?

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That whistle player is not bad at all. And the conflation of Scottish and Irish trappings in deracinated “Irish” groups is something I’ve seen many, many times before.

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trill

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The second clip doesn’t sound bad at all, though the fiddler and guitarist sound notably more bluegrassy than ITM. But the first clip suffers from being in a noisy bar and being, as you put it, deracinated with the pan-Celtic thing. Which my fellow Americans are equally guilty of; I’ve certainly seen some cheesy “Irish” acts in US bars. I might try to get in contact with this group, though my Duet concertina is not an optimal instrument for session playing, and they already have a whistler.

BTW Matthew, are you in Colombia for a while, or just visiting?

I’ve sort of moved down here to Bogota, and might live here for a while depending on work. Or might end up moving elsewhere in Latin America if some gigs fall through, or move to Berlin to live with this girl, or go do a gig in Somalia to save up some cash. Pretty much just anything other than going back to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Washington DC.

If anyone desperately needs any Colombian musical gear that you can’t find elsewhere, ping me and I’ll see what I can do. Though most regional instruments are reasonably available online, the main exception I’ve found being the bandola llanera, which seems to be one thing it’d be hard to lay hands on in US/Europe even with the internet.

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Yes, I had to go look that one up myself. :slight_smile: Thanks. :thumbsup:

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Another member is trading me for the batch I bought up, but when I was back there recently they’d rummaged in the back and found more… now marked up from 15,000 to 25,0000 pesos ($7 to $12). I doubt anyone’s bought any in a long while other than me, so they must be marking them up hoping other foreign collectors will wander by.

I’m debating having a friend bring down three Generation (or similar) new whistle in C, and offer to trade the owner 3-for-5 for the batch of Eltons she just put on display, maybe show her how notably smoother a Generation plays.