These are at auction in the UK (a friend sent the photos). Any ideas on the makers?
Thanks,
Andy
Chanter; perhaps a possible early Taylor ( like the father of Billy and Charlie) ?
Body; someone trying to emulate Kenna but there are so many modern-ish features. Suggest late 19th cent. Willie Rowsome or Brogan or O’Mealy… but it is difficult to tell and two pictures is not like having the thing in your hands…
So two educated guesses from me,
Geoff.
Looks like the original frankenset .
RORY
The drones and regulators look like they have been fitted into the wrong holes in the mainstock. The way they are set up, the drone-stop switch would be in a very awkward position, either sticking in the piper’s gut or being hit be the bellows.
What Geoff and PJ said. There are a good few bona fide Taylor chanters with the long block mounts - Mark Hillman’s, George Balderose’s. Sean Folsom told me old Dublin piper Peter Flynn had what Peter said was a Taylor built before they emigrated; only one regulator, with the folded keys, but all in brass. Forget if Sean said it was a loud 'un, or if he heard it at all really. This chanter is a really fire breather. Supposedly they only developed those post-emigration, to deal with HOW LOUD WE ARE OVER HERE. 
Quinn says Taylors always made the bottom of the popping valve rounded so there’s something to check. They never stamped their pipes; Kennas always did, so there’s another diagnostic. A chanter stamped “P BROWN” has the big highland pipe-esque rings turned in the windcap like this one, that doesn’t look much like Billy and Charlie’s work to me.
There are what look like really bad repairs here, the slider on the bass drone, the bit of brass pipe sticking out of the chanter inlet. Something about the bag and bellows looks like Rowsome to me for some reason, you might see if the bellows is stamped too.
more info:
Description
Good set of Irish bagpipes with ivory and brass bound pipes, green corduroy bag, bellows and quantity of loose fittings Condition Report Loose fittings are two small brass crooked pipes, 4" wooden pipe with brass ends and a ferrule. No case. Pipe work from different bagpipe sets and also incomplete, unnamed, the set is not reeded personal viewing essential
I have a photos of the parts but think I need permissions to post them here. See if this works…
Full Lot Details. This only offers the two pictures we’ve seen already, however you can zoom in for a closer view if you want.
I wonder where this avalanche of drones came from - they’re auctioning off bagpipes from all over the continent, sorry, continents, there are examples from Tunisia and Turkey too. There was this picture from the 50s or 60s we came across here, some dude in London reclining in bed and the walls were covered in instruments of all sorts including a bagpipe or two. Forget which archive that was from. This looks like his holdings, assuming it all came from one source, but I can’t imagine Gardiner Houlgate having separate customers dropping off dudies/cabrettes/uillean pipes/zulums/etc all in one day; or perhaps they’re cleaning house after years of this stuff piling up…or maybe Alan Jones needs to pay some bills, he had whole closets of bagpipes they say.
Good, someone has posted about this in the non-UP forum: An incredible auction of bagpipes. No answer to the mystery there though. Maybe at the Bob Dunsire forums.
Chanter may be early Taylor but if it is it has been got at as tone holes are far too large for them. The reed cap does not look quite right for their work so Tayloresque would seem more appropriate than actual Taylor
Drone switch is just rotated round as does not appear to have any guides. It is almost certainly a push pull rather than a pivoted lever
Chris
Chanter by Patrick Hennelly of Chicago?
Didn’t Michael Carney inherit the Taylors’ tools and crank out a few sets in the Taylor style?
I posted earlier in this thread, and deleted the message again. But as everybody else is throwing out their guesses:
I thought of Ned White. Robert van Dijk own a set that has some similar rough not quite Kenna look about it (even though that set is a bit of a collection of different parts that may or may not originate with one maker). White later, in the US worked more in the Taylor style. But anyone’s guess is as good as the next one and this is just a bit of speculative thinking out loud.
I have more detailed pics of the White set but this will have to do :
Early Chris Bayley for the chanter,early Alan Ginsberg for the rest.
RORY
Early Chris Bayley for the chanter,early Alan Ginsberg for the rest.
RORY
I remember Steve Chambers having a very old and bent looking boxwood like set for sale seventeen years ago. That eventually turned out to be an early Dan O Dowd I believe.
Definitely not one of my chanters.
Chris