I’m guessing a pre-50s Generation, though others here might know for sure. “British Made” (not Make) is still on the Generation label nowadays.
Yes, you don’t want to play with any regularity on a lead fipple block. You can test it with an inexpensive home lead testing kit, and cover the block with a coat of clear nail polish/varnish to make it usable.
I don’t have a clear idea when the Generation brand first emerged.
The whistle you’ve posted about is typical of many whistles from the era, so there isn’t any reason to assume there’s an association with Generation.
The earliest all-metal Generation whistles I’ve seen have a soldered “cigar band” emblem and use a different metal, not lead, in the fipple. (I have one of these in Eb that is impossible to play in tune.) There may be earlier Generations that have the lead plug, but I haven’t seen them.
The most recent all-metal Generations don’t have the soldered cigar band emblem. They have the same red, gold and black decal as current Generations do.
To the best of my knowledge, the plastic tops were introduced sometime in the 1950’s. If I remember the conversation correctly, I think Mike McHale told me they came in around 1958, but I’ve seen a photo of him as a boy that I believe he said was taken in 1953. In the photo, he’s playing a Generation whistle with a plastic mouthpiece. So I’m a bit vague on the exact timing, but sometime in the fifties seems reasonable.
Don’t assume because a whistle is old, it’s going to be something special. Some are nice, many are mediocre, some are terrible, and a few are excellent. And of course, they are made with lead, which you should never put in your mouth.
Here’s one that appears to have a lead plug and does have the Generation brand. It would be earlier than the example I described. (That white powder on the underside of the beak is lead oxide, the extremely toxic form of lead.):
OK, I think I’ve pegged within a year or two when Generation first began with the plastic tops.
I’ve exchanged messages with Mike on social media. He says the picture, taken in 1953, is his brother Tom who is playing the plastic topped Generation. Says, “I played a Generation with plastic top about two years before that. I am not sure when they started but it was about that time.”
So we can say with a fair amount of confidence it was around 1950-51 that the first plastic whistleheads arrived.
Hm, I think we can rule out the Clarke for certain. It’s a generic, typical for is age mass produced whistle. Possibly a Generation, maybe a different one. I have strong impression there were a (small) number of makers turning out whistles that were widely re-branded, depending on the seller (see for similar practices concertinas and flutes of the same time and place). The configurations Jerry described aside, Generations also sometimes had ‘Generation’ stamped/punched in the metal (though not 'British made in the examples I have seen).
Value? Anything the buyer is willing to part with although the ebay one linked , considering the state it is in, is pitched on the high side. And while talking of pitch, most of these are pitched about a semi tone of (in modern pitch of A=440) from the one indicated on the whistle.
I’ve never known of a cylindrical bore Clarke. They are conical bore, rolled and soldered whistles. The whistle shown has a cylindrical bore, which is a completely different construction from a Clarke.
