I’ve got an 8 keyed h.f. meyer in blackwood which is stamped: h.f. meyer, nach, hannover
does anyone know anything about this flute maker?
thanks,
finbar
Finbar,
What’s its condition, and how does it play?
There’s some info on the following web page.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/dmpref6.html
The cartoon is humorous. It reads:
“Breathes there a man with a soul so low
who in preference to a Boehm a Meyer would blow?”
Bill
well, the low d is out by a long way, so it is not playable as such, but i did transplant the head onto the body of my keyless murray, but this mutant is (like the guy in the picture) very hard to keep full of wind. The cool thing about it is that the slide seems to bring me up to Eb.
Do you have a tuner to check how close it is to A=440 Hertz. Some old flutes are high pitch, i.e., A=455 Hertz. Some much earlier flutes are lower, but I don’t think this would apply to your Meyer.
Bill
As I understand it, very many such flutes were made in Germany, around the turn of the (last) century. In general, they are not highly regarded. They typically have more than eight, nickel-silver post-mounted keys, and are usually high-pitched flutes.
They were cheaper, Sears&Roebuck (literally!) instruments.
“Nach” is German for “after”, and indicates that the flute is (intended as) a copy of an instrument by H.F.Meyer.
We’ve got both a flute and piccolo by HF Meyer. The flute is nothing exciting; I believe it was my late step-father-in-law’s student flute. The piccolo, which has an ivory head, is really quite fine except that it has a crack now. It has a very sweet and mellow sound (for a piccolo).