Look what I found....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47102&item=3756458869&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47102&item=3756436170&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47102&item=3756243881&rd=1

I don’t know much about old flutes, but I found these on ebay.
What do people think?

Interesting embouchure cutaway on the 3rd one…

Look again. Those are raised bits on either side of the embouchure. I’ve seen that before. Best guess anyone had was that they are there to help in outdoor playing during windy conditions.

Here’s what that is:
http://www.oldflutes.com/articles/schwedler.htm
scroll down to “(3) Embouchure”

I think this was moderately common in German transition period flutes.

Ah, the old Schwedler-Mundloch. “Cusps” is easier on my tongue, heh. Thanks for the link, Glauber!

Schwedler was a firm believer that the Boehm system was Wrong. He attempted to modify the simple-system flutes to make them play better! stronger! faster! (“we have the technology”, etc). He was successful for a while. I’m not sure the “cusps” do anything, but he thought they did.

I wanted to thank you for pointing this flute out for me. I had been looking for an example of an early keyed wooden flute at a resonable price for teaching purposes. Most people don’t have any idea what an 1885(?) flute looks like. This one seems fine for my purposes.

Thanks to glauber for pointing out the site so I could quickly identify the year, (well, fairly close, it looks the most like the “meyer” model pictured on the site glauber recomended) of its origin.

I bought this flute:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47102&item=3756436170&rd=1

I will have a friend of mine go over it and it will join my collection.
Thank you all again! Can’t wait to play it! :astonished: [/quote]

Cool! Meyer flutes were wildly copied. In Germany, “Nach Meyer” (roughly “Meyer type”) was a generic name for old-system flutes that were made in the beginning of the Boehm-flute era. Some of these are very good, but quality varies. Real Meyer flutes are rarer, and tend to be very good. Good luck with your new flute! Let us know how it plays.

g

It’s not an actual “meyer” but what is great is the condition.
It seems to have been well loved. I love the “reverse” cylindricle bore. The larger holes. The engineering,(flow) of the keys. Someone obviously thought it sounded good enough to hang on to it for 100 plus years.
Reminds me of a wooden clarinet I once had the loan of in high school. It was old but still sounded very sweet. I believe it was also german.
It may be a gamble on it’s playabilty, probably will find out there are so many of these flutes lying about in Germany that they are used for kindling . :laughing:

I followed a link to this page:

http://www.oldflutes.com/im/lategerm.jpg

I scrolled down to the picture of four flutes together , two with ivory heads. the second one up from the bottom is identical to mine, (less the ivory head).

the caption reads:
From bottom to top: A. A. Euler (Frankfurt, c.1870), J. H. Zimmermann (Leipzig, c.1900), G. H. Hüller (Schöneck, c.1925), G. A. Hammig (Markneukirchen, c.1930)

This would be flute endorsed by:

J. H. Zimmermann
and built by (Leipzig, c.1900)

Interesting.

then I found this

That Köhler endorsed the Modell Zimmermann does not necessarily mean that he played this instrument (or any flute by Zimmermann) himself. Zimmermann was the publisher of his Flöten-Schule and I am sure he was happy to put in a good word for their instruments. It is concievable that Köhler would have prefered Viennese-style instruments, since he spent time in Vienna, and this was the type of instrument favored by 19th century Italian flutists. Below is a Viennese-style instrument, also by the Zimmermann firm and also stamped in Cyrillic (and also with a non-original head).
Viennese-style flute by Zimmermann, c.1880.
http://www.oldflutes.com/articles/zimmim/zimmv.jpg




:wink:

Oldflutes.com is Rick Wilson’s site. Most of the flutes picture there are in his collection. :boggle: He’s been building that for many years, buying old flutes and restoring them. Even more, he plays all those flutes, very well. A very nice guy too.

All due kudos to Rick Wilsons wonderful site, I just put link to the actual photos to save loading time for illustrations, but I should’ve out a link to his site also to give due credit:

http://www.oldflutes.com/german.htm

without this invaluble site I wouldn’t have had a clue as to what I was getting.

Also again thanks to dragon for filing the “first alert” (so to speak), on the german flute, I wanted to let him know that I also ordered the Casey Burns Folk flute about the same time he ordered his Casey Burns. So we have that in common also.

The flute is on it’s way, so to speak, it seems I am always waiting for a flute… :wink: