Having owned a number of silver flutes, I was curious about this flute that I found listed at ebay. Curiosity got the best of me, and I just had to see how much flute you could buy at this price. The flute arrived in the mail today, and I will have to admit that I am impressed with how nicely the flute plays and how striking it looks. The flute has a nice tone, and the intonation is good. The keys work easily, and the low C plays without difficulty. The tenons don’t fit together as smoothly as I would like, but otherwise I can recommend this flute as a very playable, low cost silver flute.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSAA:US:11&Item=7381496736
Thanks for tip Doug.
With this kind of flute we are getting close to the concept of the disposable flute. When the pads will get out of order it will be cheaper to buy a new one rather than having it repaded by a technician. 
These cheapo Boehms would probably NOT be the best for a child. I know that Walmart has sold some very cheap flutes made in China. The band director at the school where I teach and some instrument repair people I know say they are not strong enought to take a fifth-grader’s treatment. (Of course, hopefully, the child will be instructed to take care of their instrument, but kids will be kids. Accidents, etc.) Some repair people won’t even touch them because they’re not worth fixing, as noted above.
Jeanie
I also thought that this cheapo flute might be cheaply made. However, I looked it over closely. It is made from heavy-walled tubing, weighs 15.2 ounces, and looks substantial. The key-work appears to be quite similar to a Yamaha flute that I owned.
The problem with music stores and music repair technicians is that the introduction of inexpensive Chinese instruments into the American market turns their business upside down. I found this out with violins and cellos. I bought a few Chinese instruments on ebay. I played them for awhile, and I then placed them on consignment at my local music store. What happened is that my inexpensive Chinese instruments sold right away, not only because they were cheap but because they were obviously very nice instruments, as well. The expensive German instruments were left on the shelf. It didn’t take the music store very long to figure this out, and they no longer will accept instruments for consignment. In their store they only want to offer expensive insturments where they can make a good profit, which is understanable, and they were not able to sell these instruments when they offered a low-cost, quality alternative.
My father was an auto-body repair person all of his adult life. Growing up in my father’s garage, I remember that they once had a policy of not working on “foreign” cars. Then, when I graduated from college in 1965, I bought a new VW bug, which at the time was one of the few, low-cost ($1,700) inported cars in the country. After having the car for a couple of years, my dad took over the payments and began driving the car to work, because it got good gas mileage, and it was good driving in the snow. My dad fell in love with the car and drove it until it was worn out. If you look at the car business today, you will now find many foreign cars. There was a Chinese car shown at the recent auto show, and something like it will soon be on the American market, selling for less than $10,000. Americans, like others around the world, are looking for quality at a low cost, which is a painful reality to those who currently are working in the manufacturing sector in high wage/benefit countries like the USA.
A compromise to this dilemma is what we have in the town where I am currently living, Lafayette, Indiana. A Japanese owned and operated company, Subaru, manufactures vehicles using American workers at competitive wages and benefits.
Good and fair points, Doug, re: foreign instruments and competition. Keep us posted on how your relationship with this instrument progresses. It does look very nice in the ebay pictures.
Jeanie
Wow, that makes me want to try their piccolo!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7381465648
To bad I already have too many instruments.
Note: I have just taken up the flute again after 20 years not playing!
Thanks for the review. My new silver plated, Venus student flute arrived last week. It was ordered on ebay, before I had read the above review. It is a well made, attractive, instrument. I am enjoying playing it. I have had no trouble with low C or high notes up into the third octave. The company I bought it from (here in England) have a 14 day return policy, and a 1 year guarantee, so there was really no risk. By the way, I will be keeping this flute! However I can’t compare it to other flutes having not played for so long,
PS. On my instrument the foot tenon is also tighter than I would like, but the head tenon is perfect.
Ben Miller
At the top of the page on which your msg. re your new Chinese Boehm appear is an advertisement from the “Portland” Flute company (obviously not in Portland OR, ME or IN!) advertising such flute at prices ranging from $149.50 to $200-plus (the latter is gold plated!).
They even make saxaphones! I can remember whe Irish ceili bands were heavy on the saxes! Now I’m thinking, Could this start a trend, and give the button accordion players something to worry about?
Forget about PVC, and start thinking “outsourcing” to PRP (People’s Republic of China) and conical grenadilla construction, Doug! It’s the wave of the future!
Just joking, of course
Mal
The problem with Saxes is that most of them are in Bb or Eb instruments (they are like C Flutes or F Flutes). Although, I have heard there is a C Tenor. The fingeringsw otoh are the same as Bohem Flute for the most part.
C Melody, between alto and tenor, usually tenor shaped (dip in neck)
sax is Boehm…
Well, this is comforting. I can’t decide whether I want to get into boehm or not, but if I ever do, it’s good to know there’s a way to do it without shelling out $3000 up front.
BTW, I play saxophone, and am familiar with the boehm fingering pattern. While they are similar, the saxophone fingering system is much more straight-forward. This comes at a loss of range, though, as saxophones have something like an octave less than a boehm flute (not including altissimo).
I don’t think any modern makers make C melody saxes, but you can sometimes find antiques.
UPDATE: Some guy makes a “Contralto” saxophone in C. He doesn’t call it a C-melody because he has changed the design entirely (the C-melody was just a stretched version of the Eb Alto, wrong bore and all that).
Turns out the fingering system of this guy’s instruments is radically different form what you find on anything else. He also makes flutes. He’s based it off of the chromatic scale, which apparently makes playing most any scale very easy, no matter how many flats or sharps are in the key signature. He’s got a lot of write-up on it, makes for an interesting read.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I saw/heard Sigurd Rasher in the early 60’s… four and a half octave range 1/32 note runs… It doesn’t sound like a sax up there.
The A# key was a favorite of mine.
do you mean, then, that the flute is just as straightforward? because, if you stick to the first 2 octaves, there are no inconsitencies besides low c/#/b and the left pointer popping up on the d and Eb. i only dabbled in saxophone, so i dont recall if it is more straightforward in its 2 octaves.
sometimes, i do wish that the Ab and Eb were still open. it makes for a nicer switch to conical, but it prohibits some rolls i wish i could do in other keys.
The chromatic system has been around for a while, mostly for saxes. I read about it in a 1980’s Instrumentalist magazine, then got to try one in the 90’s at the NASA conference (North American Saxophone Alliance). It has wildly complex keywork, horrid fingerings (coming from Sax’s fingerings), but it had the most even scale and tone of any wind instrument I’d yet tried. Altissimo was good for a full octave without much embouchure gymnastics. It had a Db bell tone ( same size as an Eb Alto) but there were others in the works.
It didn’t make every scale easy. It made them all equally hard. I haven’t tried the chromatic system flute.