Hi everyone!
It has been a while…
My latest eBay flute is unmarked, save for AL (Alexander Liddle) stamped under the C# key.
The flute actually didn’t have any cracks, played right out of the box!
Now here is the strange thing about the flute;
The flute plays in A=440 htz at least down to D. The foot is 145mm long, however the C#-D# measurment is 249 mm, according to Terry, is made for 440htz. The flute is cocuswood pin mounted nickel silver keys.
Oooh neat!
Kinda of and Anglo/Franco flair to it.
Pretty cool Jon!
More like late English, about the time of Boosey, with the little pointy parts on top of the key cups. The bore is more of a Rudall then a Pratten, though. The embouchure is quite small 11.2x10.2mm, but it is a easy player.
I am sure you will be by at some point to try it…
When bring back the pile I have. 
Rather than start a new thread with the same title, I thought I’d revive/butt in on this one (hope you don’t mind, Jon!).
Here are some pics of my latest eBay acquisition - another one I guess folks may have dismissed at a glance as a “Nach Meyer” - so I got it at a decent price!
As well as the obvious crack in the barrel (liner removed) there is a minor crack to the footjoint socket and the missing C# tone-hole bushing - other wise in good condition - just needs overhaul/re-pad etc. Remarkably, the head is not cracked, as is so often the case with ivory. Examination shows why - see the 3 detail pictures - the head is actually laminated with a wooden inner sleeve sandwiched between the ivory (which is thicker than just a “veneer”) and the metal liner. The sandwich filling does not appear to be cork, nor cocus wood - I’m guessing a softer hardwood like maple or some such? The wooden liner has some evidence of cracking, but has presumably absorbed the usual shrinkage of the ivory over the solid metal so the ivory has survived intact. In fact, it appears the wood may have shrunk more than the ivory. The wood runs the full length of the head and is visible in the embouchure cut. This flute isn’t playable at all as received, but ivory does feel lovely against the lip!
The embouchure is cut in an eye shape and is not aligned true to the long axis, nor does it appear to have any undercut whatever - I’m often surprised in antique flutes at rather crude, clearly original and undamaged embouchures in otherwise well crafted instruments!
thread thief! 
The key work is similar, is there any makers marking under the C# key? The flag keys were often made by Alexander Liddle.
That one could have easily passed as a German flute, with the ivory head, and the pin mount keys.
Here was another flute that fooled the masses, made by Clementi:
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/this-weeks-ebay-flute/51053/1
Is there any reason beyond esthetics for the C and C# holes to be aligned with the D hole? I suppose it makes a bit of difference to have the plug and the fulcrum on the same plane. Is there any other reason to have the touches snaking around like that, just so the holes align?
I think functionally, it would not matter. It is one of those things that they did from Day 1… In 1818 Louis Drouet came up with having the two holes on the side of the foot and angling the keys at a 90 deg. later to be adopted by Bohm. But I guess it didn’t stick with the other makers in London. DCM 0347: Louis Drouet / Flute in C http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/dmhome.html
s1m0n, I take it you mean having the C# and D holes (the ones closed by the C# and C keys) in line with each other? The Eb hole/key is always offset, of course, and the two lower foot tone-holes are only in line with the main run of body tone-holes if you adjust the footjoint (if it is separate from the lower body) so that they align thus - which may not be the case depending on the conformation of the C# & C touches and how you need to set the rotation of the foot so that R4 can operate all 3 foot keys comfortably, which will depend on your hold and the conformation of your hand. (N.B.The bottom lower body hole for R3 is the E hole - holes are named for the tone they give voice to when open, not to the note you get when fingering/closing them!)
I think aesthetics may well be a strong part of it, but having them in line isn’t universal. Many German and other Continental flutes have them at different angles - c.f. pics of my Rampone with low B (on here somewhere if my disfunctional picture host hasn’t broken the connection) - though there are still loops in the low C levers on most such flutes to circumnavigate the D hole/C#key plug or cup. Of course, in many such “foreign” flutes the C# & C touches are not interactively linked as on the majority of English style flutes, which perhaps gives some extra flexibility in design.
EDIT: OK, with a little more time now, here’s a pic I took a while back for another thread showing five different foot sections, from L to R: Rampone, anon German, anon German, anon French, Rudall & Rose. This picture wasn’t set up to show the tone-hole placement rotationally, so isn’t ideal, but I think you can make out that the first 3 from the L all have some offsetting of the C# hole/C cup from the D hole/C# cup, and I think the French one may have too (I sold that one nearly two years ago, so I don’t remember for sure and the pic isn’t clear).
BTW, you can see above that, in the one piece lower body/foot forms, none of the keyed tone-holes are in line with the main run of open holes, and also that even on the flutes with separate foot joints, when set up to play as here, the rotation neccesary to give accurate access for my hand to the foot key touches means the low tone holes are not in line with the body holes on these either.
I’ve just checked my “in box” and out of about 9 or 10 assorted quality German/Austrian flutes, all bar 3 have slightly offset foot key alignment, though not to an extent that removes need for a loop in the C touch lever.
Interestingly, my latest eBay flute shown above has a slight offset too - unlike any other English flute I have or can recall off-hand.
Here’s a picture of a Low Pitch Rampone & Cazzani I have awaiting overhaul that shows the offset foot key alignment better:
and here’s a detail of the foot of my own Rampone (I believe it is an earlier one then the LP one above on the basis of the form of the firm’s name, although mine plays well at 440)
.
I suspect that the English preference for in-line bottom tone-holes may also have something to do with the practicalities of turning block mounts (easier to cut/file to shape and finish the blocks for the lower parts of the grasshopper keys if they are in line?), which persisted far longer in Britain than on the Continent - and when pillar mounting became more accepted in Britain there was a tendency to stick to keeping the holes in line.
(Edited to remove a piece of contextual stupidity!)