In conversations with SteveJ and Ava, I’ve begun investigating the history of various designs of the Generation whistle.
What I’m looking for is descriptions (photos, ideally) of the features that distinguish each historic version of a Generation whistle, together with a timeline of when the different designs were introduced.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I have vintage Generation whistles in all keys, from the first production lines up till today’s whistle.
I’d be glad to offer descriptions and photograp…
wakes up and looks around
Oh well. It was good while it lasted.
I have mostly older types, my guess is the present design, with the wider window was introduced around 1982/83. I know people who have large stacks of whistles accumulated in the family, goign back [yeah yeah] a generation, one man is reported to have a hundred or so old whisltes in a suit case. I also know where Willie Clancy’s whistles are kept. I’ll poke around a bit. You never know.
Thanks, Peter.
Avanutria has a G Generation redtop she sent me for tweaking that she bought sometime between '88 and '95. It has the longitudinal ridge on the top and bottom of the beak I believe is characteristic of the previous version. She bought it in a music shop, and it’s possible it had sat in the shop for several years before it sold.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I just sold an old generation blue label Tabo on e-bay as well. I have a D somewhere. 'Aventuria …It has the longitudinal ridge on the top and bottom of the beak I believe is characteristic of the previous version. ’
Can you post a picture of this? I can’t get an image in my mind. Howvever, I discovered I have an old Shaw D in its packet with a fingering chart unopened and aunplayed and an old Shaw which leaks on the join.
Jerry, I believe Bill Ochs showed me an old Gen from the days prior to the plastic mouthpiece. It was all metal, with a lead fipple plug, similar to the Hohner. You could e-mail and ask him about it, but I don’t think he has digital camera capabilities. I’ll probably see him again right after the holidays and will ask if I can photograph it for you, if you’d like.
If I remember correctly from a chatroom conversation with SteveJ, the Shaws were introduced around '88, and the introduction of a key of D Shaw may have been the thing or one of the things that motivated Clarke to offer a D whistle. At that time, only C Clarkes were being made.
I would appreciate that, Jim. I’ve exchanged a few emails with Bill, so he knows me.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I recently saw a photograph of Willie Clancy [I saw it fairly recently but major events happened soon after and the memory of it’s detail is a bit dim] in it he was playing an generation whistle, it struck me he was a relatively young man in it and the scene seemed to pre date my idea of the introduction of the plastic heads. I will have to look into that to, I remember where that one is. They seem to have been around for a good while.
Here are two whistles I put in the scanner just now, the red head is an older type Generation D I remember having around as early as the mid to late seventies. The Green one I bought around 82, maybe 83. It is interesting in the sense that it has a green head which is of exactly the same specification as the new type Generation head they started to put on their whistles a year after I bought this one. This whistle has a Green label, now practically worn off which had an Irish harp and the name Darra on it and D on either side of the harp denoting it’s key.
I have never seen this whistle widely available, I think I bought it in Lisdoonvarna but I am not certain. My theory is that at the height of the troubles when hungerstrikers were dying and the ‘British Made’ label on the Generation wasn’t very popular, Generation may have given it’s new design a test run under a more Irish name. But I am only guessing at that.
Notice the wider window and the larger ‘bulge’ inside it in the new design.