http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290655498133
Looks in pretty decent condition. I asked the seller for dimensions - OL 660mm, SL 580mm, so it is (almost inevitably) High Pitch, unfortunately. Asking price may be a trifle steep in the circs.
I own an ebonite RC&Co Radcliff model flute. It plays very well in tune with itself at A=440hz, with a 9mm slide extension. Its sounding length (measured with the slide closed) is 580mm and its overall length is 650mm. At this slide extension there do not appear to be any tuning anomalies. Its tuning is very good indeed. Cosmetically, it still looks good at this slide extension too - only silver is visible. So I have the distinct impression that the target pitch for this flute was something close to A=440hz, and that it was intended to be played with some slide extension.
[Edit: I just played it some more to make sure it was well warmed up. With me and the flute warmed up the best slide extension for A=440hz is 11-12mm, and its still well in tune with itself.]
Jon
Forgive me for doubting/contradicting this. I have an 1867 system with those dimensions and, with a similar slide extension and as a significantly flat blower, I can kinda get it down to 440 for most of the lower 2 8ves, but the tuning is by no means perfect/consistent and it goes way off in the 3rd 8ve. I have other experience of 580mm SL Rudall Cartes and IMO they really are not satisfactory forced down to 440. The correct/necessary SL for a Bohm tube flute at 440 is between 597 - 603mm, conventionally 600. Simply having a longer head or pulling the slide way open will necessarily significantly distort the scaling. Have you done a RTTA analysis of yours, or even just examined the intonation carefully across the tessitura with a tunes, or done any serious ensemble playing on it?
I have not done any testing of the 3rd octave notes. I have just played notes up through the first two octaves sitting in front of a Korg electronic tuner, playing note by note and watching the needle. I have tried to avoid the temptation to just lip the notes into tune, and have tried to blow as uniformly as I can. I have also set the tuner in “fast” mode and have played a few simple tunes while watching the needle.
At the slide extension I mentioned I do not see any trend in the tuning. For example, the lower notes are not sharper than the higher notes in either the first or second octave. If I close the slide down there is a discernible trend, with the left hand notes (B, A, G) being sharper than the right hand notes (F#, E, D). If I calibrate the tuner to anything near or above A=450hz I can’t get it to play as well in tune with itself.
It is certainly possible to lip any of the notes sharper or flatter, and I would say its easier for me to go sharper than flatter, so if the target pitch differs from 440hz it would probably be higher not lower, but I don’t think it would be anywhere near as high as British HP.
One issue that might also be significant is that my flute really needs to be repadded to play optimally. I haven’t played it much because of this. It plays, but its not as responsive as it should be. I don’t know if this would uniformly affect the tuning.
I originally got my flute from Malcolm Reavell. He is a good player (certainly better than I am). He reported that this same flute played in tune for him at A=440hz with an 11mm slide extension, and my experience is consistent with this. However, I believe he also didn’t play it much because it needed repadding, so that issue is common to both of us.
Anyhow, I just add this as a data point. I have no interest in the flute that is for sale.
Jon
Mmmm. I suppose it is possible you have a CP body which at some time acquired a shorter head from an HP flute. As they didn’t put specific identifiers on the heads, there’d be no way to tell. However, I wouldn’t have thought such a combo would have quite so short a SL. What is the C#-Eb length and what are the overall lengths of each element of your flute?
The C#-Eb length is 249 mm. The foot length is 129 mm. The head length is 228 mm.
For what its worth, the flute is in what appears to be its original Rudall Carte & Co case (23 Berners St on the label). The head and foot pieces seem to fit the case perfectly. The body section of the flute is shorter than the space in the case by about 15 mm though. All sections of the flute seem to match – the ebonite is faded to an equal shade on each.
Thanks paddler. And what is to overall length of the main body, then, end-to-end (very ends of the tenons) when disassembled? I’ve just found I have the eBay listing recorded from when Malcolm sold you the flute, including the pictures, so I see what you mean about the body being short in the box.
I haven’t got my HP 1867 here to check-measure, but I have got a definitely Concert Pitch one (Ebonite, #5426, stamped 23 Berners St but in a case with the 20 Romilly St address which it fits perfectly in all particulars) the dimensions of which are as follows (your given dimensions in brackets, paddler):
OL 673mm (incl crown) (v 650)
SL 600mm (580)
C#-Eb 258mm (249)
Head 232mm (incl crown) (228)
Body 348mm (incl tenons) (333)
Foot 131mm (129)
Emb centre to end of head 157mm (158)
So, 4mm shorter in the head (but we don’t know the embouchure hole position in your head - can you give it?), 2mm in the foot, 9mm in the C#-Eb and 20 in the SL.
Edited to add dimensions subsequently provided.
My CP Radcliff is also away being restored, so I can’t measure that either, but I know that too certainly has a SL of 600mm.
The body length, including tenons, is 333mm.
The embouchure position, center to end of head is 158mm.
The makers marks on the body of the flute are very faint. I had to wait for daylight and find a good magnifying glass, but this revealed something interesting: it has the address “20 Charing Cross” and a serial number of “90”. So since the address in the case does not match the address on the flute, I guess the case may not be original.
By the way, Jem, do you (or anyone else) have a fingering chart for the Radcliff flutes?
I’d be happy to do some 3rd octave testing of my flute’s tuning, but I need to see a fingering chart to do a good job of that.
Mmm. Interesting. I’ve edited those into my previous post for convenience. Same length head, in effect, as mine. Same embouchure head SL, at any rate. Allowing for the odd mm discrepancy in our measurements, the difference is mostly in the body, isn’t it? Although I agree yours looks to be all similarly aged etc., I still think there’s something a bit odd about its dimensions and that maybe head and/or foot are not necessarily original to the body, though the SL and C#-Eb are bang on for a HP A=452 flute. Of course, head and foot need not have been from a Radcliff either as they are the same for all the different key systems they made! We know the firm did all kinds of re-jigs… and doubtless supplied new cases when battered old ones died, leave alone owners mixing things up.
It would be interesting to compare my HP 1867’s dimensions - I need to chase it up… having a minor repair done. Mind you, we know that different makers at the firm made their own minute differences of detail from each other and from flute to flute, so how much having those measurements will reveal I don’t know. Bigger sample needed!
There’s a full Radcliff fingering chart in the old Boosey & Hawkes Otto Langey tutor book (Carte’s 1867 system too). I have it, but haven’t scanned them to my computer, so can’t readily zap them over, and no time right now, sorry. Will try to oblige in due course - remind me.
No rush on the fingering chart, but I’ll be happy to give it a try when I get one.
You had me doubting my sanity, so I spent some more time playing it and examining the tuning this morning, being sure to have the cork correctly adjusted and the flute warmed up. As far as I can tell from playing it, the target range for this flute seems to be somewhere between A=439 and A=446. With the tuner calibrated anywhere within that range, and the tuning slide adjusted appropriately, the response across the bottom two octaves appears reasonably flat with no special effort made to lip notes into tune. If I try to adjust the slide to play outside that range there is a noticeably trend across the notes of progressive sharpening or flattening towards one or other end as one would expect from an inappropriate head length. For example, I need a few millimeters of slide extension to avoid the foot being a bit flat, but if I extend the slide to the point where the cork lapping starts to become visible then the upper left hand notes start to flatten compared to the foot.
I would guess that I blow flat rather than sharp, but I don’t think unusually so. Also, for what its worth I have been playing this with a similar embouchure and blowing angle that I use on conical bore flutes, so more downwards rather than across as might be more typical for a Boehm flute player.
…i have no time to do a proper job, but I hope it is fine for you to get those pics…
Rockstro’s got Radcliff charts, too, IIRA - maybe a few differences? Will have to do that when I get a chance.
Wow, what service! Radcliff fingering charts direct from Radcliff! 
I’m not used to playing these really high notes, but I just managed to squeak my way all the way up to the Bb on the last page. That was a bit of a struggle! I could not get the two highest notes (B and C), but I think this is simply due to not having a very good embouchure (plus, perhaps the leaky pads I mentioned earlier). But the important point is that I could select fingerings from the chart for every note up to that point and play in tune (plus or minus 10c or so) of the note at A=440 with 11 mm of slide adjustment - the same settings I was using for the lower two octaves in the tests I described above. So all three octaves do seem to have fairly consistent tuning.
The same (see OP) flute has been relisted, at a reduced but IMO still excessive starting price of £300. Ends today. The vendor has not displayed the dimensions… 
but I asked again before I recognised it ( 
) and this time he replied:
The overall length is 655mm, the other dimension (SL) is 580mm and there may be one tiny hairline crack on the lowest joint it is hard to tell if it is a crack or part of the woodgrain.
Sold this time, for £366.00. Only two bidders. Looked to be in pretty good nick, so should play nicely (or be readily restorable to do so) for whoever got it. Not a bad price for either party, given it is HP.