Hi, I haven’t posted here for ages. I have been piping though. An urgent question: does anyone have any idea who might have made these pipes, or even how old they might be? It’s a 3/4 flat set, maybe in C, I’m not sure. 18" chanter without windcap. Images below, hope they’re not too big.
Looks too nice for Willie R. His early sets built in the style of the old makers were kinda funky. This might be Harrington; Geoff Wooff’s pipes are only stamped in one place, on the bottom of the stock. Another clue that they’re older than Willie is the lack of a G# key on the chanter, various sources say makers in the early days like Kenna left off the G#, presumably for acoustic reasons.
The bellows and chanter top (T top brass inlet) are newer than the rest of the set, which looks like it’s been through the wars, note repair on middle reg D key block. Cool stuff - is the stock hollow? More pics please!
Yep - I´d agree. Very possibly a bit more than a song.
The whole chanter looks non-original. Square blocks and round keylids. My guess would be Maloney.
The octave key usually was straight (no “wraparound presser”), the trims were bone and the chanters were hosed. Compare:
However, this pic is a Maloney-guess, too, as they did not stamp their items.
I see some similarity with the reg caps of the Harrington and those of the mystery set. Also, the reg keys are of a similar shape. Still far from a 100% certainty, though.
Second attempt at posting this. I just lost my entire message.
I’ve lived in Dublin for the past two years.
I found out about the set from my sister-in-law who phoned me from an auction viewing to tell me that a set of pipes was going to be auctioned today. I went along half expecting to find a Pakistani-made set, but found the set in the photos instead. I had to go back with my wife to take a few photos and we had problems with the camera, so I didn’t get closeups of the regs, etc.
I went along today, willing to bid a couple of hundred on the set, had to hang around for quite a while, went shopping, etc., and when I came back I saw Gay McKeown at the auction house. He agreed that it was probably a C chanter, maybe B, and didn’t recognise the maker. He was also a bit concerned that it might be stolen. It came in a Mick Mullen case, with a couple of issues of An Piobaire, so the owner may have been a member of NPU.
In any case, Gay won the auction with a final bid of €420. If they’re not stolen, they’ll go on display at Henrietta St.
That’s a good outcome. If they are stolen they’ll get returned to thier owner, if not they’ll be available to have a look at.
The square blocks always make me think Rowsome. But the round key pad’s weren’t adding up. Moloney is a definite possibility. Paul Eliasberg used to have lot’s of photos of the famed big Moloney set from Clare, are you out there Paul? It looks like it’s a 3/4 set. That would be unusual for a Harrington or Moloney I think. Maybe it’s a newer stock and the bass regulator is lost. The drone configuration looks like its tenor, bass, baritone… that could mean Harrington, but any Harrington I’ve seen has had lovely cresting eliptical blocks. As well as the mount turnings and the line from wood to ivory to metal to ivory on Harrington’s work is incredibly subtle and artistic. This set seems not to be as refined as that. Also, possibly of note, brown ebony.
Just to make sure: My guess (Maloney) only goes for the chanter. It looks like not belonging to the set. My closest guess here would be Harrington, too.
Coyne = no ferrule at stock end of regulators; unless you’re looking at one of the rare (single?) exceptions to the rule. The fiddle shaped keys seem to be standard.
Egan = teardrop shaped reg keys. Moloneys used these as well, at least on the Monster set, which is about the only one I’ve seen. But there’s a set stamped “Egan” with fiddle shaped keys as well…like the classic flute makers, the old pipemakers would get bored on occasion, or do custom work.
People like Wooff can tell you even more about what’s in a pic just from looking at the shape of the blocks, or how the long reg keys enter the same; some makers built keys that sloped into the block, others made keys that “nosedived.” Can’t keep all these details straight.
The chanter with this set still looks like it’s original, what with being made out of the same turd colored wood, and very much like Moloney, compared with the one in Hans’s pic and the monster set. The plain long ivory mount at the top seems to be a trademark. The ring keys are really weird, wonder what it’s like to play them. Note that the monster set’s chanter doesn’t have G# either, unless it’s mounted in the back somehow. Maybe the T top chanter inlets are original, too; perhaps they invented that.
A brief update. The previous owner of the pipes was a doctor who passed away this year, so they aren’t stolen. The mainstock is hollow, the regs may have been retrofitted, and Maloney is an initial possibility for the chanter at least.
Guesses just by photos are of course difficult and sometimes can be misleading but provided that you have some good quality closeup-shots among them they can be very accurate. A pity that your camera was out of order. The ornamental rings might be the main thing. Their number, sequel, distance, depth and general shape tell a lot. They sort of are „the makers hand“: While the shape of the trims and the keyes and even the blocks may have changed in the maker´s days, these tend to be more constant. Only in combination with a good few of other features (keyes, trims, blocks, material, general shape, owners etc.) even non stamped sets (after a good guess) could be identified fairly accurately.
Just take for example this Maloney-matter: AFAIK they did not stamp their items and we only can be sure of the Vandelieur-O´Leary-„paperclip“-monster. Here are some good closeup-shots:
This one shows the rings, the blocks and the keys fairly well and even allows for conclusions of the way they were made.
This one shows some trims fairly well.
This one shows that the chanter-foot trim (obviously a stopkey now) has changed since O´Leary´s days. Or did he maybe use a different chanter?
Anyway, all together could enable you for „transfer“.
Here is a pic of a set that could be (could be) Maloney, too (whith a “wraparound” third octave-key). On a second look now the set in question could also be a Maloney. What shape of blocks for the reg-keyes do you believe to see? Round, square, rounded edges by sandpaper? What keyshape do you think to see? Fiddle, dovetail, spade?
I have been collecting photos for years now. It would be nice if the photograpers had some bigger awareness of the importance of some good quality closeup-shots.
Thanks for the pics, Hans-Joerg. Interesting soundbox on that bass drone.
Here is a pic of a set that could be (could be) Maloney, too (whith a “wraparound” third octave-key).
Do you mean on the chanter, like the speaker key on a clarinet? That’s an idea that’s crossed my mind before, but I’m no pipemaker.
Agree, if that’s the only pic of that set out there that’s a pity. But eventually we got some nice shots of that big Coyne set in Stockholm, after a decade of staring at those crude cell phone camera jobs.
How about a union pipes coffee table book - one of those oversized tomes with page after page of glossy photos? I’d buy that in a heartbeat. These old sets are real works of art.
Lovely idea, Kevin. Perhaps somebody could talk Paul Eliasberg into making such a book. I think he lives in Northern Ireland now. Paul already has made a good few of nice quality photos (I think including Rory´s). BTW - where is his site by now at all?
“Wraparound key” is confusing indeed. I meant the presser. The 3rd octave keys always are at the side of the chanters but most makers make a presser that “wraps round” a bit to the front and is “shoved” by the pinky. The Maloneys seemed to have been the only exeption. Most of their 3rd octave keys were staight.
I took this cut from smithand´s pic:
(for comparison, here is Geoff Woof´s Harrington:)
They both are not pistine quality but I think you can see the square and the round reg-keyblocks. Also the ornamental rings on the Harrington are more “sophisticated”: Additional “shapes” (like e. g. Robert Reid´s) vs. just plain rings. This would exclude Harrington as maker of the “guess-set”.
It’s always interesting to see my kitchen table appear in internet pics… who’s passing these things around, anyways?
I did not think ‘Maloney’ at the time, but the Vandeleur Maloney may be an exception, little is known about them.
One of the reg caps on the current “mystery set” is a dead ringer for Ronan’s brass Harri, and some metalwork is a close match too. Some of the turning is very Coyne-esque, but drone caps are something else altogether… so really quite hard to draw good conclusions from these individual stylistic elements. The key blocks may well have been repaired to the point that one can’t identify them anymore.
Research into the set’s history may tell us more (a little birdie tells me)…
