Hello!
Bought on a whim, here’s hoping for help. Can it be restored at a reasonable cost?
Pictures: https://bertrandtech.ca/HawkesFlute/
Hawkes & Son #23118 wood flute, Boehm system, offset G, body without foot joint with keywork to low C. No idea what variety of wood, but the head and body are different. There are two very narrow cracks in the head joint, but none visible in the body.
The tuning is a half tone high w.r.t A=440: finger C, get C#; B → C; A → Bb. The head joint is stuck to the body, and I don’t dare force it, so there is no way to change the tuning.
Inscriptions:
HAWKES & SON / MAKERS / LONDON / 23118
EXCELSIOR / SONOROUS / CLASS / HAWKES & SON / MAKERS / LONDON / 23118
Its sound has a strong presence, living up to its inscription “Sonorous”. I’d love to play it for real.
So… Worth fixing?
Thanks
–Louis
If as you say it is “half a tone high”, basically the answer (sadly) is almost certainly “no” - repair and overhaul costs would significantly exceed eventual value and not be justified in terms of utility, unless (very unlikely but not impossible) it really is a “Db” flute at A440.
If you measure the sounding length (here’s how: https://youtu.be/2sz-ixD34ho?si=h3VPb-yEgdc70bmz) and it is (as I’d expect) around 580mm, then the flute isn’t actually a semitone up (in Eb in trad terms, “in Db” by transposition) but somewhat less than a full semitone. It’s almost certainly an Old Philharmonic Pitch instrument made for A452.4. If so, whilst you could pull the head way out and tune a chosen note to A440 standard, the scale would be too short and intonation dreadful - too bad to play in any ensemble context.
FWIW, the serial number indicates the flute was probably made in 1931 and stamped with a Boosey serial number as the actual Hawkes numbers don’t go that high and terminate in 1931. The firms merged in 1930 and stock made in the Hawkes factory was, from some point in 1931, stamped by the Boosey factory in their preexisting series - in which this flute’s number would fall in 1931!
Measure and tell me the sounding length and I can confirm whether this is a high pitch concert flute or an A440 “Db” one.
Interesting that instruments dating from the 1930s were still being made in old philharmonic pitch A4=452hz. I’m aware that English brass bands kept to that particular high pitch long after modern standardisation at A440. Despite the somewhat staggered uptake of A440 I’m curious what would be the intended use of a newly made high pitch flute or piccolo as late as the 1930s? Were English orchestras still using A452 immediately pre-war?