I buy and sell a lot of vintage GHB’s and border pipes, and I’ve had more than my share of great finds. In February, a woman sent me an e-mail about an instrument she found in her father’s attic in Pennsylvania shortly before the house was to be demolished. She said her great-grandfather used to play it and asked if I could tell her anything about it. She e-mailed some photos and I told her what I could. I made her an offer for the set, and after considering it for about 3 months, she was kind enough to sell it to me. I’ve been playing a half set, and I have a full set of Michael Hubbert pipes in Concert D on order, but I didn’t expect to acquire a Taylor style full set with a double bass reg. It’s stamped “J E Brennan, Phila PA MFR 732 Butler St” on the main stock. The keys all work nicely, but it is in obvious need of thorough restoration. The bass reg had a reed in it. No bag, bellows, chanter stock or blowpipe and stock. The mountings are nickel and ivory. Four key chanter with stop key. Any recommendations on who to contact about information on Brennan?
Yes he is. You will know him when you meet him: he is all in black with off-white collar and cuffs, his buckles and buttons are these silver-flat tongue depressor-like things. And he has a wrap around sense of humor. As well, he can be a tough guy to read. I should mention his double bass reg goes from here all the way to here, baby! I need not mention the five rivets in the end of his valve. That’s gotta smart!
Chris Bayley had some pics of a Brennan set on his website. Would be interesting to compare the two. I’m certain Chris will chime in here. There’s a Brennan set on the West Coast US too - much cruder than this one.
I have two pics of Brennan himself - very muddy mimeographs. They show him playing a four reg set, right-handed in one and left-handed (caption says “cithog” = Left-handed in Irish) in the other - pretty impressive! Actually someone just used a negative…NPU may have the original of that photo. Might be your set.
What appears to be Dublin pipemaker Willie Rowsome’s personal set turned up a couple years back. Cool if you’ve got JE’s pipes as well.
I received the pipes two days ago and I was in touch with Chris Bayley a couple of days before they arrived…I had seen the pages on his site about Brennan. He has been very helpful. Kevin - I would love to get copies of those photos of Brennan, if you have a way of e-mailing them. I don’t imagine that this set would have been his personal set, I think that would be difficult to speculate. If there was a lot of variety in the sets he made (as it appears from the few I’ve seen) then maybe the photos will be instructive. There is some good information about Taylor and the inventory of Taylor sets known to exist (some 29 sets only)…I wonder if there is any information on how many sets of Brennans are around. The few other Brennans I’ve seen photos of are not stamped, so that makes it difficult to do an accurate assessment. Things I would be interested in finding out…how many sets were made, any flat sets made, dates that Brennan was in business…difficult questions, I’m sure.
Brennan made bellows for the Taylors, and inherited Billy Taylor’s reamers upon his demise, before Hutton from Scotland acquired them. It’s also speculated that the bores of some Brennan pipes were made by the Taylors and that Brennan just finished them off. I don’t know how true this would be. Suzanne Neary had a Brennan set back in 1997. Billy McCormick of Chicago had a Brennan chanter along with his Taylor set according to Ed Brennan’s own book of notes and meausurements.
“J.E. “Ed” Brennan was a piper and son of a piper. He lived at 732 Butler
Street in my home town of Philadelphia and made pipes in the first third of the twentieth century” T.W.
Recently there was a Taylor-style set sold on ebay that had 5 chanters, including a double chanter. Who bought that set? The woman who rescued the Brennan set from the attic e-mailed me today and said she got an e-mail from the guy in the UK who bought that other set. She had seen it just after it was sold on ebay and was nice enough to still sell me the Brennan at a good price, knowing that a similar set had just sold for $7600. Well, the buyer of that set expressed frustration in his e-mail that she didn’t sell it to him, and he told her he would have topped my offer. How classy.
I’ve owned over 30 sets of vintage pipes (highland and border) in the last 6 years (although I’ve been playing for 35), and I’ve always felt that sharing information on vintage pipes (pictures, measurements, history) was a benefit to others and that we all gained from that shared knowledge. I guess I can see why some people aren’t so open to sharing. I must have missed that post on this forum where the buyer of the other set shared photos and info.
And speaking of classy…the woman who sold me the Brennans pointed out to me the ebay listing for the other pipes after I had made her an offer. I raised my offer at that point, but she said she would accept my lower first offer instead.
I’ve cleaned the set up as best I can, and I’m preparing to send the set out for some restoration work. I’ve assembled it for the photos…note that some pieces look a little crooked…I’ve just loosely connected the joints with teflon tape. Note also that the stock is turned for a left handed player, hence the regs and drones are turned around. Just thought I would share some photos. I’m missing the connector for the Double Bass Reg, and I’ve started a seperate thread on that to see if anyone can help with measurements and photos of that piece. Thanks!
JES is probably fit to be tied right about now!
