Beautiful keyless Patrick Olwell flute for sale. Key of D. Like new condition. $800.00
The above is a first post.
Moderator
What style of Olwell is it? Pratten or Nicholson (or R&R copy) ???
Any photos or recordings?
Any way to confirm its a genuine sale please?
I can email photos. Can anyone tell me how to put photos on here? Olwell knows who I am if you want to ask him of my genuineness.
I actually don’t know what style it is. I could find out from Olwell. I just forget as it was ten years since I got it.
Toba
That sort of info usually matters quite a bit to a buyer (and player)
B
To post photos, first upload them to a hosting service such as Photobucket etc. Once uploaded, most such hosts will offer you a selection of link-ready urls for embedding etc. Choose the [IMG] style link and copy it, then paste that into your post here. Use the preview function on the composition page to check it has worked. (Tip, make sure your images as uploaded don’t excede about 700 pixels laterally otherwise they will bump the page width to larger-than-screen size, which is a nuisance. Vertical size doesn’t matter so much. There’s more info on picture posting somewhere in the Flute Photos sticky.)
Also a piece of general advice - if you want to sell an instrument anywhere, especially a high-end one and especially on a special interest forum, it is a wise plan to get all your information together and include it in your main For Sale post! Saves time and effort for all parties!
The fellow selling the flute kindly sent me photos. The flute is a rosewood Olwell visually in good condition. No tuning slide. All wood. Can’t tell whether it’s a Pratten or a Nicholson. Don’t know what a rudall looks like. Probably
Pratten or Nicholson.
The seller is in British Columbia. My impression, for what it’s worth, is a sincere person who is not yet experienced at selling flutes.
Is Toba comfortable with allowing Jim to post the pictures?
I don’t have the wherewithal to do it.
However the seller, Luke, did send me four photographs.
he will send them to you too. These all wood Olwells are very nice flutes,
but the absence of a tuning slide is for me a bit of a problem.
rather had to struggle not to buy it. I had once a boxwood Olwell
flute like this, lovely Olwell sound. my impression, for what it’s worth,
is that these are great for playing at home, less good for sessions.
Patrick once told me he uses these ‘in the studio.’
For what it’s worth, the unlined rosewood Olwell I had, which I believe was a Nicholson, was good for sessions. Plenty of volume and no problem w/tuning. I bought mine on Jordan’s recommendation and hope to find another just like it now that things are better economically. I love rosewood. The recommendation of someone who is known on the board would help in this situation.
I play an all boxwwod Nicholson Olwell which incedently I think I bought off springrobin. It is a great flute plenty good for any situation. Don’t need a tuning slide or lining. It’s all down to being an Olwell. It is much louder by virtue of design (ie bore, fingerholes, embouchre hole) and playing style than many a blackwood flute in a session. It is much louder than many a lined flute as well. Maybe a lined olwell may feel a little brighter to some one playing them back to back but as is always said around here it is more the player than the stick. All of my flutes are all wood no slide, Casey Burns Low flutes, Ralph Sweet high flutes. Don’t miss the slides at all having previously owned flutes with slides and linings. A new head I’m thinking of having built for an Old cocus flute will be unlined all wood one piece. Saves money and stress on wood. Take Care, Patrick
The problem I had with the boxwood flute was this:
If the flute was at all cold, it played flat and the tenon didn’t permit me to sharpen the flute enough to bring it into pitch. I would roll the head out to try to bring it up a bit. I was playing in a chilly room so it was a problem.
Also, I found the unlined head joint combined with boxwood and the design of this particular flute didn’t cut through in noisy situations. I was playing, for instance, with several hammered dulcimers and I couldn’t quite cut it. A lined head joint cut through better, although the boxwood flute was about as loud.
Now I hasten to add.
The difficulties I had cutting may well have been illusory, a function of boxwood, of my own limitations or the particular flute.
Rosewood sings and rings and has lots of overtones and I would bet it would do better.
According to Patrick the flute should be able to be tuned sharp, but I found that with the tenon
all the way in it was often flat if it was cold. I reckon something could be done about that.
again it could’ve been just me
Emphatically, the flute was a wonderful instrument, it had a wonderful sound and it was very light. It had the Olwell magic .I regret selling it. Worst case. scenario, there are lots of flutes one doesn’t play in sessions and lots of people who don’t play sessions at all or only rarely. This flute is worth buying, imo, and a good price.
by the way, my flute was also a Nicholson. so this is one, I wager.
To be fair to what Jim has said I think flutes should be evaluated when warmed up, especially all wood flutes. My boxwood flutes really sing after an hour of playing and play easier I think partially because I am warmed up and partially because the flute is nice and wet. I had some similar feelings to Jim about my flute at the begining having switched from a lehart flute now that I am more used to the flute I find I play “it” more in tune right from the start of picking it up. Also my new flute a lined 19th century cocus flute really only sings after an hour of playing as well. It is the nature of wood flutes I think. If you don’t want to warm up play a delrin.
The difficulty was that the session was in a cold room and I couldn’t stay warm.
The flatness persisted no matter what I did.
A big badly heated dance hall in the middle of winter, etc. If it was summer or the heating
was better things would have been a good deal better. But the flute was
very sensitive to cold. Again maybe boxwood. I did not have this problem with any other
flute I played there, and I played several. Again, a tuning slide would have helped.
In any case, I honestly don’t see this sort of flute as cut out for biggish ensembles, at least not
the boxwood one. Patrick O says so too, as I mentioned above. It’s meant for something more intimate.
It’s certainly possible the rosewood would do better. I hardly see this as a significant limitation–unless
you want something for biggish sessions.
Jim, not to be harsh but if you aren’t able to blow the flute up to pitch it’s your embouchure. You’re rolling in/covering up too much; as a “roller-in” myself I recognize the syndrome. Any road it’s nothing whatsoever to do with boxwood.
Rob
I take your point about boxwood, but I was rolling the headjoint way out, well beyond the line
of holes, and deliberately blowing out and over it so as to lift the pitch. Pitch was entirely
on my mind. Possibly it was me but I don’t think so. Under the best of circumstances
the flute was in tune with the tenon entirely in. I was playing with the blow hole
lined up with the holes, generally, or further out. There was no room on the tenon
to go sharp. And it was very sensitive to cold. Again I was not having this problem
with any other flute I play.
I think was a great flute. I’m sorry I sold it.
I’m struggling not to buy this one.
I’m just trying to alert folks who may not know this sort of flute.
In my opinion, if you are wanting something
for loud ensembles and/or shifting temperatures, this may not be
it. It does better ‘in the studio,’ as its maker says. FWIW.
I trust somebody will buy this before I do.
Sorry for hijacking this thread but Jim we may be putting off potential buyers for someone’s flute. My boxwood flute is louder than my cocus flute by the nature of design. Olwell flutes are in design more loud than some other flutes as my cocus flute 19th century no name al keys. Design embouchre cut trumps wood choice and player can trump design I suppose. My unlined boxwood flute can hold its own on stage with an electric guitar and full band (Sorry, but purists need to eat too!) and in any session (if one were so inclined to drown others out). I would reason that the flute for sale being similar in design (Did we ever find which type of Olwell we are on about here?) would do the same job in the right hands. There are other reason for wanting a tuning slide and lined head but embouchre compensation should not be one of them. Play around 440, not the most important of flute accessories. I’d rather have an f and c key for my money but to each his own. As I’ve grown as a player I rarely find a well made flute that I can’t find something I like in it. Good luck with the sale. good flute good price.
Playing in tune, “Projection” and “cutting through” come from the player. A good embouchure and diaphragm oomph will be all you need to play one of Pat’s all-wood flutes in tune at a good session. The same goes for other reputable makers all-wood flutes. I played an all-wood Doyle for a few years at sessions and NEVER EVER had an issue with tuning, and the well-seasoned fiddlers I was playing with would have dragged me out of the pub by the nostrils if I had.
Usually those players who have difficulty projecting are not filling the flute sufficiently from mouth and from further down. It is easy to become obsessed with lined heads and tuning slides, to convince yourself that the only thing stopping you from sounding like Matt or Harry or Jean-Michel is the absence of a lined head. Catherine McEvoy has done pretty well for herself playing a flute with neither (yes I know her new Grinter has both) but that’s not the point.
I too am on Pat’s list for a keyless and I am seriously considering his all-wood Rudall. I know that Pat makes flutes with slides and lined heads for a reason and recommends these for sessions but I wouldn’t let this recommendation stand in the way of me ordering an all-wood flute with the view to playing it at sessions.
Somebody buy this flute and play it how it was made to be played. 
If I may intrude! 
I owned both Robin’s Rosewood Olwell (The Rose) and Jim’s Boxwood Olwell. Both were Nicholson models without tuning slides, but honestly the Boxwood couldn’t hold a candle to the Rosewood. This was not due to the woods, just the individual flutes. Like Jim, I also could not play the Boxwood up to pitch.
***** SOMEBODY BUY THIS ROSEWOOD NICHOLSON! ***** 
did we actually figure out that this is a Nicholson?
for $800 does it matter?
anyone know the seller?