Hi everyone,
We are enquiring about our wooden family flute
It has markings of ////V on the middle piece at each end and also //// i think theres a v on the long piece of the keys…
can any body advise us on who made it etc
i did a bit of research i think it may be wylde but i dont no…
I can upload pics if need be
Many Thanks Trace and Family
The Ogham-like slash markings (done with file-edge or saw-blade) on surfaces not normally visible on the finished and assembled instrument, e.g. the butt-ends of joints or the undersides of keys, are usually workshop markings (mostly Roman numerals) identifying parts intended to go together or perhaps the work of individual craftsmen within a workshop. They are most common on the “nach Meyer” German-made flutes of the later C19th and are pretty unusual on English-made flutes. The latter may have key-makers’ stamps on undersides of keys, usually clearly letters, but they otherwise tend to have proper finished-surface visible stamps of maker’s name and address etc…or nothing.
If you want us to be able to tell you any more, you really need to post some pictures of your flute, as you seem to realise. Let’s have a look!
Welcome aboard!
P.S. You can’t upload pictures here directly - you have to upload them to a hosting service such as Photobucket, get the IMG code and post that in your post-text here. It is best to edit/reduce your pictures before uploading to ensure their maximum width is <750 pixels (height doesn’t matter).
P.P.S. It may well not help, but any extra info such as where in the world you are and any known history of the instrument within the family - how far back it is known to go, what used for etc. may help and will anyway be of interest.
pics would be good?
photos of the flute x
please some 1 must be able to help us xxx
Quite certainly German and made between c1870-1930. The spun metal crown and foot caps and the angled G# key and the non-interlinked low C/C# keys are distinctive and definitive.
so is the markings a nech meyer???
and is it worth valuing for insurance purposes and whos the best person in wiltshire, england to speak to about this
many thxs Trace
“nach Meyer” simply means, literally, “after or according to (the style of German flute maker Heinrich Friedrich) Meyer”. In other words, it’s not a brand name but rather a description of a category of relatively inexpensive and usually nameless flutes imitating this German design. The notch markings are probably of no value in identifying the specific maker of the flute.
Also, the final analysis on the value of a nach Meyer would be in how it plays, and from there perhaps some informed opinion on the part of an antique flute expert or two. I wouldn’t go off insuring it for big money just yet: unfortunately while there are good ones it seems that the majority of nach Meyer flutes are not, and the proper market value of those poor players is low. I saw one listed a few years back for as low as $400 USD, sight unseen. I have one that I grossly overpaid for back in the day - before I saw the low listing I mentioned - only to find that it could not have been made by fluteplaying craftsmen, and it hangs on the wall.
Nevermind the flute. You keep your fingernails very nice. Good grooming should be recognized.
Sorry to be slow coming back - no 'puter time over the weekend.
OK, I won’t disagree with what the others have said. However, I have been something of a supporter of these flutes as players’ instruments, but with severe caveats! I have experience of doing several of them up with a view to selling them on. Regardless of whether they have makers’ stamps, some turn out to be well made with good internal tuning and can make decent beginner/intermediate instruments. Others are appallingly badly made, have dreadful internal tuning issues, badly cut embouchures so they won’t “speak” properly, etc. Also, a great many of them were made for old Continental diapason normal - c A=430-5 - rather lower in pitch than we play today. Those ones are of no practical use to today’s players, regardless of their quality. Until one has restored an instrument to playing condition (obviously a gamble!) it is impossible to be certain of pitch, internal tuning, general quality of sound/tone/“voice” etc. - and therefore impossible to put a firm value on it.
We can make a good estimate of likely playing pitch if you can supply the following measurements of your flute, which will give a slightly better idea of potential value/whether it is worth expending any effort on: with the flute assembled and all parts pushed fully together, measure in mm 1) the overall length including the crown and foot caps; 2) the “sounding length” - from the centre of the embouchure (blow) hole to level with the far, open, foot end; 3) the C#-Eb length - from the centre of the top (nearest mouth hole) open tone-hole (for L forefinger) to the centre of the Eb key-cup (the in-most key on the foot-joint, the short one for the R little finger - make it easier to measure by rotating the foot-joint so the key is in line with the open tone-holes).
Regarding the markings, your photo makes clear that they are what I suggested they would be in my previous post - and such workshop markings are pretty generic on these flutes - they can’t help with provenancing it to a specific workshop/maker at all as their use seems to have been common practice in the Markneukirchen and other German/Czech woodwind trade.
You can read more about these kinds of flute here and here.
As for insurance, I’m sorry if this disappoints you regarding a treasured family heirloom, but these flutes are worth very little. They are very common and are not desired by either the Irish trad music community nor the Classical Period Instrument specialists. A fully restored, playing-condition example that is verifiably at modern pitch (A=440Hz) and has decent internal intonation is worth up to about £300-350 in the Irish players market. Examples not at modern pitch are worth very little indeed - under £70 IMO, even if restored, and I would not waste my efforts on doing so. Unrestored ones that from their dimensions are potentially playable at A=440 could be worth £60-100 depending on condition - and that is the category yours falls into. If you sold it on eBay you might be lucky and get c£150 for it as it is in nice, clean condition and has a case. Overhaul and restoration (if there are no cracks or other hidden issues) would probably cost from £80-120, but it is inadvisable to ask a mainstream music-shop woodwind technician to do the job as they tend not to be familiar with these instruments and don’t necessarily do a good job.
I would not bother to take out specialist instrument insurance on it unless restored and being regularly used by a player. As an unused heirloom, in current condition (or even restored), it probably isn’t even worth a “specific item” mention on your household insurance. Just include it on whatever private written list of possessions you keep for insurance/security purposes. As for your request for tips on a valuer local to you - I’m afraid I don’t know of anyone in the Central Southern area of England - but in any case I sincerely don’t think it is worth you bothering… very few modern music shops or antique dealers know anything about these. Hobgoblin in Bristol might have some idea, but I wouldn’t make a special trip… For the kind of value it has, you would not in any case be asked for a written valuation by any insurer.
To support what I’ve been writing, here are some examples currently/recently on eBay from a quick trawl through my eBay “watches” - this for a c3week period - but a typical haul for any such period - there are loads of 'em out there:
This one, http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130405476736, admittedly in a very gungy state but will likely clean up OK just went for £43.65 - about right!
This one, http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130416184626 also went for c £47.00.
And this one, http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250674125498 for c£66.00.
This one, http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150473805698, again with a short D foot, achieved £85.00 despite its condition - you can see another example of workshop batch marks like yours on the socket end in one of the pictures.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380256990601 just sold for £150 - over the odds, IMO, as like the others it needs overhaul and repair, but I fear an inexperienced buyer may have been misled by the (accurately) quoted stamps to believe it is English.
This one, http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320568505149, is very visually similar to yours and has been cleaned up and is allegedly playable, though it clearly needs an overhaul and crack repairs: it went for £185. If it plays at modern pitch and has decent tuning, with repairs/overhaul costing another c £100-150, the buyer may have paid a reasonable amount… or they may have wasted their money on a dud (assuming they wanted it to play and not for a pub wall - if the latter, they paid way over!).
This one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370416545478 - similar but with a short D foot has been relisted multiple times at £150 to start with no takers.
Here’s another needing overhaul/repair: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130418367737 - again, a rather high starting price…
And another: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130405476736.
This one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290453250402, maker-branded by a known quality maker has also been relisted several times at too high a starting price to pull any interest.
I don’t have any current links for them, but also for current market context illustration, I’ll mention that there is a Polish eBay seller who regularly offers fully renovated and retuned/revoiced formerly Low Pitch German flutes for about £300-400. I have no idea how well done they are, and am dubious about the whole idea (!!!), but s/he does manage to sell them!
I hope that is helpful and interesting for you. Best of luck with it!
Ditto to Jem’s words.
I recently purchased a no-name German 11-key flute, completely cleaned, overhauled and repadded, for $325 US. I’m lucky in that it’s a good player, but I don’t see it as having any collector value. I’m viewing it as (hopefully) a stepping stone to a keyed flute from one of the modern makers.