Hi all,
I have a nice piccolo in D for sale, it was made by Swiss maker Erwin Oesch senior in 1969/1970.
The family business is still very active nowadays, with Erwin Oesch junior that provides piccolos for the famous festival in Basel. He used to have a website not long ago but it looks like it’s not active anymore, you’ll find lots of stuff with a Google search though.
The piccolo I’m selling is made of African blackwood, unlike the more recent ones that are synthetic. It’s a simple system instrument with 6 keys, with the very same fingering of the 6 keyed flute we use for Irish music, but with the pitch of a tin whistle in D. The metal parts are silver plated on (I think) brass. The plating is mostly intact, with some brass visible at some edges (see pictures). The wooden lip plate has a crack that has been repaired, and one of the two screws is a replacement. The endcap is also a replacement made of black delrin (same color of the wood) and has a screw to adjust the stopper position. The only tenon has had some work done in the past, doesn’t look particularly pretty but it’s functional. Thread is new. All pads but one (long F) are original and in good conditions, and all the keys work wonderfully. All the key springs have a guide dug into the wood to keep them in place and efficient, a very nice feature. The holes are interestingly both under and “over” cut, and quite big compared to other simple system piccolos I’ve seen, which makes it manageable even to people with fingers that are not super skinny. The bore is also relatively big.
The maker’s mark is very very faint and gets confused with the wood grain. You can kind of read “esc” (from Oesch) and “as” (from Basel). The serial number is more clear, it reads 209/4 (which dates it to 1969/70).
It plays very well at modern pitch with good tuning, and it has a tuning slide.
It’s a really good player once you get used to it, capable of a loud but sweet and not shrill birdlike kind of sound. One of the biggest challenge in playing a piccolo is learning how to control it, as it can be very loud and overwhelm the other instruments. It’s a great training for your lips though, and once you get it you will be able to make it reasonably quiet. And in some extreme situations you really need that extra volume if you want to hear yourself at all…!
I suppose the “wings” around the embouchure hole are meant to help directing the air into the hole.
I’ve played it at session for a few months before I decided to start using another nice one by Metzler. I actually wanted to keep both as they have very different and distinctive sounds, for different situations, but unfortunately now I need to sell this one.
Asking price for this high quality instrument is only 300 euros that includes shipping. It’s a very good deal I believe, just think of the price of some wooden whistles, then add 6 keys… No case.
Here’s an audio clip (first take, and I didn’t play it in a while): http://vocaroo.com/i/s10C05J3DWED
And some pictures:
