FS: Hammig (?) Boehm-system blackwood flute

Irish Flute
1

Grenadilla, silver-plated keys, no markings (see below), plays beautifully at 440, very good condition, original crutch included. Very mellow, warm tone. Languishing unplayed in my closet for too long!

The Irish session player who sold it to me had this to say: “The vendor I got it from told me that this is a Hammig circa 1925. He said that the reason that it doesn’t have a serial number is because it was one of the black market flutes from behind the Iron Curtain. Steve Malarsky did the major restoration. He replaced all of the pads as well as reconditioned the wood and filled the cracks. The head joint was rebuilt by Neal Krane, a master craftsman from the Haines Company, who suspected that the head joint had not originally been completely finished. A local flutist, who studied contemporary wooden flutes when he was considering a major financial venture with the Haines company, told me that it is a classic Hammig from its construction.”

Set of pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64678647@N00/sets/72157634164924216

Asking $2000, plus shipping.

2

It’s an interesting yarn but really, the Iron Curtain was established after the second Word War. Twenty years or so after the flute was made. So that’s all it is, a yarn.

3

Very likely. Since I don’t have any authoritative information myself re. the flute, all I can do is pass on what I was told… alas!

ETA: Having realized I didn’t actually know the history of that particular phrase, I went looking. Just in case anyone else cares, the term actually predates World War II by quite a bit.
“The first English use of the term iron curtain applied to the border of communist Russia in the sense of “an impenetrable barrier” was derived from the safety curtain used in theatres and used in 1920 by Ethel Snowden, in her book Through Bolshevik Russia.”