Another Rudall up for grabs. Three cracks, one in the barrel which has been repaired, the other two are small, and don’t affect the tone it says. Buy it now 5.000 USD = 3.235 sterling = 3932 euros - auction ends 18th Sept. The flute is in the US
Item number: 250694319241
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rudall-Rose-Carte-Co-Flute-/250694319241?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a5e8bbc89
I’d want to see better pictures of those cracks. I’d especially want to see better pictures of the barrel crack and repair. I don’t like the look of it in the one picture so far on the site.
Aye, the barrel crack repair is certainly visable, but the owner/seller says/gives the impression that the flute doesn’t leak from this, or from the other two cracks. The keys look like they have been polished up, the box doesn’t look original, prehaps it is? Doesn’t say if this is a recent repair to the barrel in order to falicitate the sale of the instrument, or if the flute is a working/played instrument and the repair is old and solid?
Very hard to tell anything much from those photos. Why do folk take such bad ones? - It isn’t exactly hard these days to take half decent ones or to do some basic editing before uploading!
The case is a typical C19th English one, but not in R&R’s standard house style - may or not be original to the flute - most likely not, but is contemporary.
The crack in the lower body socket needs to be stabilised/repaired even if it isn’t affecting playing as-is and I’m guessing the one in the foot will be a similar, if less visually severe socket crack, probably under the Eb key. The buy-it-now price is about right for it in fully renovated condition, I’d opine…, probably about £200/U$300-ish of work to be done to it if the ideal socket repair (ream out socket, glue in tube of new wood and ream that to correct dimensions, producing a laminated socket, in effect) is carried out. Those cracks may not leak, but they could get worse, especially with water getting into them, and they weaken things - more risk of further damage during assembly etc. I’d want them done. That’s assuming the barrel crack repair is up to scratch and doesn’t need re-doing, on which I can’t see enough to say more about.
Nice flute! Starting price is fair, IMO, but anyone seriously interested in bidding needs to ask some serious Qs - including the serial# and sounding length - the flute is from a period when it might be aimed at higher pitch, so sounding length and C#-Eb plus the owner’s estimate of slide extension needed for A =440! (Given the vendor seems to be a player and to use the flute, it seems likely to be OK, but for that money, best to clarify!) And more and better (lit) photos are needed - of the embouchure, the main stamp, the area of the foot crack as a minimum.
How typical is if for RRCs to not have serial numbers?
i would have expected the foot keys to be interlocking for a later R&R model?
I have one, and have had one in the shop that is an RRC without a serial number.
Eilam, that was just an option, not the norm. I have seen later RC’s without interlocking foot keys.
Cracks don’t look that bad, just an evenings repairs. The wood probably isn’t Cocuswood, but another form of ebony, by the looks of the cracks.
The owner says that he can’t find a serial number on the flute, and that he/she has been playing the flute for the past two years. This would indicate that the flute is indeed sound enough despite the three cracks, in use, playing fine, and ready to go. The cork is adjustable via the end cap so we are spared the “is it or is it not a patent head discussion” This looks to be a nice flute at a reasonable price 
With a standard wooden crown, there was no question that it was not a PH!
Plain ‘hockey stick’ over-lapping foot-key touches seem not to be unusual on these later Rudalls.
“With a standard wooden crown, there was no question that it was not a PH!” jemthe flute.
DUH!!!
Resist guys, resist! Don’t - please - get back into the PH discussion!
POLICEMAN: Sir, step away from the Patent Head and put down the “expert”, sir, I said put own the “expert”…
There have been a number of Rudalls without serial numbers on ebay. One, about a year and a half ago, sold for over 3000 pounds sterling, with cocus and nickel silver keys. This one seems expensive at the buy it now price; though the large holes do make it interesting, don’t they.
Shane
@ Jon C - Looks like cocus to me, Jon - just the badly lit photos making it look darker in parts, I reckon.
@ Thalatta - there was never any danger of another PH row here - not relevant!
This is the seller of the flute in question. I updated the description on the flute, hope this helps.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250694319241#ht_543wt_1136
kcarey9 - welcome here, and thanks for the update… though I fear you haven’t really responded to most of the points we’ve raised here (the serious ones, that is)
Are you saying that the only stamp is the one on the lower body joint? If so, and there is no stamp with the address (always on the upper body, above the top tone-hole), nor stamps on the foot and barrel, how can you state so certainly the flute was made at the 20 Charing Cross address? Or indeed that the flute is an integral original Rudall? I’m not saying it isn’t, and in your photos (such as they are) it does look consistent and likely to be all one flute, but lacking the stamps on each joint, that cannot be stated with certainty. You’d help your sale to show these things well.
I also don’t accept that the flute being even a very good fit in the box necessarily means the box must be original - there is evidence Rudalls did sometimes supply boxes other than their standard one, but if the box isn’t one of the domed-lid, black leather covered type, it remains possible that it is either a bespoke box made elsewhere for the flute subsequently or just a period one that got paired with the flute later that chanced to be/because it was a good fit. (I have a similar box myself in which I keep my R&R, and I know where my box came from to me, not with my Rudall in it!) The most you can legitimately say is that it is “likely contemporary, very well fitting and may be original, though not in house style”. Not that that is of any real significance to the value of the flute or the auction result - there are collectors who will pay extra for a verifiably intact original assemblage, but most of these flutes go to players who will pay what they think the playing value is and not worry too much whether the box is original or even present at all.
How’s about some better lit and composed photos - here if not on eBay (won’t cost you anything to upload them here and you can link them to your eBay listing from whatever picture host you use) - especially some joint by joint detailed ones? Simply averring that the crack repairs were done professionally is no guarantee of how well done they were - any sensible serious bidder is going to want to see, which your present pictures don’t suffice for. If you take pictures in diffuse natural daylight you can get much better results, even with a phonecam! (See my Facebook albums for examples, e.g. this one. Or there are plenty of examples of good - and bad - flute photos in the Flute Pics sticky thread here on C&F.)
And what about those critical dimensions?
Another point we haven’t raised and you don’t mention in your listing is what metal the keys and fittings are made from (the pictures again are inconclusive) - they could be sterling silver (I suspect so) but many RRC & Co flutes had German Silver fittings, which few of the earlier R&Rs did. It would help your sale if you could state that with certainty either way.
If stamped Rudall, ROSE Carte & Co., that was ONLY at 20 Charing Cross, 1857-71. After that, same address as Rudall Carte & Co. thru 1878, than at 23 Berner’s St. Oxford St. until bought by Boosey & Hawkes 1955.
In the Question & Answer portion of the auction, the seller states there is a stamp with that address (although not pictured). Yep, more photos would be appreciated.
There was a Rudall Carte 8-key sold by Pat Finnegan on eBay in 2007 to Dave Ogden, here in California for $2,650. Of course, seller FinFlute also sold a bunch of other flutes, including Rudall Carte Boehm System flutes and others on eBay, so not a surprise if others were sold directly and locally.
The stamps are located on every section of the flute, and the one with the address 20 Charing Cross is on the head joint. Regarding the pictures, I will try to get some better, more detailed pictures up here in a few days. I am unsure what type of wood the flute is made out of, and i also don’t know if the keys are sterling silver or not. Is there anywhere I could look this up?
Thanks for your response. That information about the stamps is very significant and you’d be well advised to state it clearly on your listing. However, one further query - the actual head on Rudall flutes was usually unstamped, the barrel, foot and lower body got the “short” stamp you have illustrated and the main stamp with address (and usually serial no.) was on the upper body. Did you really mean the head was stamped? (That isn’t querying authenticity, just surprise at what would be a very unusual location!) Of course, joint-by-joint clear and detailed photos will reveal all in due course.
Re: materials - there isn’t really anywhere you can “look up” these things. Unfortunately for us Rudalls, like most other C19th London makers, didn’t bother to have their sterling silver hallmarked, so no help there. Discerning these differences is as much about having an experienced eye as anything. Good photos may let us tell you about them. German Silver is a cupro-nickel alloy, like a pale brass, really, which can vary (depending on the alloy balance) from fairly silver-like to quite gold-like when freshly polished. Real sterling silver tarnishes black, of course, and polishes up to, well, a silver colour! German Silver goes a dull, yellowish pewter colour as it tarnishes, and it goes dull far sooner than silver will. If you polish up a key with Brasso or metal wadding and the result has a yellowish or gold-like look, it will be German Silver. Also, with German Silver you are more likely to find deposits of green verdigris in places like the key-slots in the blocks, though brass leaf springs can also be responsible for that, of course, even when the keys are sterling. FWIW, on your current photo of the lower body showing the stamp, the long F key is shown fairly well and appears to be more likely sterling than GS, IMO.
As for the wood, it is IMO rather unlikely in the period in question (thanks for the dates clarification, Kevin - in the absence of DM’s Catalogue I have no way to check these things these days!) for it not to be cocuswood - but it is possible. Good pics should let us help on that.
Kevin won the U18 competition at the Midwest fleadh last year (2009), so there should be no doubt about his ability to determine if a flute is good or not.
The type of “cocuswood” is not the true cocus but more of a cracking ebony, I have a couple of flutes made of this stuff, including my RRC, it has a tendency to crack, the grain is straight, and turns very dark. I am not sure of the variety, but it is not the cocuswood from Jamaica. I have seen this wood intermixed with the real cocus, so thye may not have realized it was a different species?
