For Sale: At the new auction. The last auction was spoiled by a scammer who ruined many other auctions besides mine. EBay canceled the auction and left me holding the bag. Please see my post below that explains EBay’s reasons.
It’s a lovely Siccama. Block mounted,cocus wood, silver keys, in nearly perfect condition. Worth looking at even though it may not be your cup of tea. A modern maker would have to charge about $4,000 for such a flute.
It’s basically an eight-key Pratten with the G and D holes enlarged and stretched out to bring the flute into perfect tune. The two extra keys enable the player to cover the G and D holes easily.
with soooo many people complaining about having hands too small to handle the spread of the simple-system flute why the Siccama systems haven’t done much better.
I have one and it plays as good or better than many Prattens and is so much easier on the hands. Very powerful with a beautiful resilience.
I just don’t get it. Is it the esthetic alone? The keys operate quietly and beautifully in ornaments. You sacrifice the “glide” from G to A, but there aren’t many who even use that enough for it to matter.
so…again…why aren’t these more popular among the small-handed set? I mean, they were good enough for Pratten and Richardson in their day…why not today?
I wonder if Rockstro’s dismissal of them has anything to do with their lack of popularity?
I too have wondered why we don’t see more of these or similar from modern makers for the small-hand brigade - even Susato low whistles are borrowing the concept for such folk!
Jem
I’m not all that sure that Rockstro has any impact on today’s traditional flute player and the choices they make. If he had, they’d be flocking to the ebonite flutes instead of cocus and would be running away from boxwood, neither of which is happening.
McGee has made great points showing how Rockstro – a personal friend/fan of Pratten – was likely very jealous of Siccama’s success and spent a lot of his time trying to downplay the instrument. Unfortunately he took with him any mention or information about my man John Hudson, the crafter behind the Siccama and the Pratten’s Perfected.
The flutes of Siccama (i can only speak of the early ones made by Hudson, not the later ones of Chappel or of Rudall or Boosey) are strong, powerful players with stupendous tone. The two keys at RH3 and LH3 are different but surely necessary.
For the small-handed individual they are ideal instruments that sacrifice nothing in terms of quality or power.
So I re-ask you players out there…why is this flute so much ignored?
I’m sure you are right, David. I wasn’t so much thinking of present day ITM players being put off, but more that maybe these flutes are less common - so less available now - partly because they were so ridiculed?
As I said, I too wonder at how few modern players either use originals or seek out similar arrangements in hybrid flutes like the one we discussed recently, or demand them from modern makers. I know a Chester based flute player who has a fairly early Chris Wilkes that he had Chris add a R hand Siccama key to because he has a restriction in the movement of his R3 finger - but I can’t think of any more such examples.
They are not entirely ignored - I get the occasional order for my Siccama model. Sometimes for players with damaged hands, sometimes for players of small stature who simply cannot manage the stretch. You only have to fall short by half a millimetre to find the usual flute completely unmanageable. The Siccama’s stretch is no worse than a Boehm.
As David says, there are no performance downsides of a Siccama - it’s like a perfected Prattens Perfected, but easier to play. All the more so with a modern version, because the maker can optimise for A440 opertion, whereas the originals, like other flutes of the time, had to operate as best they could over a range of pitch.
I do prefer an entirely open-hole flute myself, but I’ll happily revert to a Siccama if advancing years or accident make the normal stretch unreachable. Unless of course it’s the lungs that go first, in which case I’ll eek out a few more good years on a Grey Larsen Preferred. Then there’s still the whistle.
It’s good to have your exit strategy planned in advance! Must write it down, in case the fingers outlast the mind and the lungs.
I was delighted with a final bid of $3,050. But my joy was short-lived. A scammer weasled into the act and ruined my Siccama flute auction. He hijacked somebody’s account and made bids that ruined other auctions besides mine. Now I have to re-post and hope not to have this auction ruined too. The questions are: will past bidders be willing to bid again, has the flute’s value been compromised, and how much of the $3,050 came from legitimate bidders?
Here’s what EBay said:
We have cancelled the listing(s) to maintain the integrity of the eBay site, your account, and the bidder’s account that was accessed. We are working to restore the bidding account to its rightful owner, and we are working with the account owner to prevent any additional unauthorized activity. Since the account owner did not initiate these bids, all fees resulting from the listings in question will be credited to your account within 7 days. If you do not see the credits posted to your account after 7 days, please feel free to contact us through ?Contact Us? in our Help section.
Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to automatically relist these items for you. Instead, to relist these items you will need to start from the beginning of the listing process, either through the “Sell Your Item” process or through your third party listing service. We know that this is an inconvenience and we apologize for the negative impact it may cause you. We are working on tools to allow you to relist your items without starting from the beginning, but they are not available at this time.
Yea that is frustrating. Happened to me this summer with a “buy it now” price, some fake account just hit the buy it now price and tried to scam the flute from me.
Seems like these type of activities are on the rise.
Thanks For all the kind words. The lovely flute deserves them even if I don’t. I found out because when I tried to log in to EBay my auction had been disappeared. I received first an email from “The Winning Bidder” and then from EBay notifying me of the cancellation, after the auction had ended. Scammers work very fast.
I tracked down and called the (nominal) winning bidder in Tennessee, the person whose account I found out had been hijacked. Her name was on the email from the winning bidder, asking me for details for payment. She told me that I was the sixth person to call her that day. Her own auction for a boat had also been spoiled. Scammers are after names and passwords and access to such sites as Paypal and EBay. Now I am keeping track of the bidders so that if it happens again I can find them through EBay and contact them.
The auction is off and running again and the flute has reached $1,000, which is a good sign so early in an auction.
It remains to be seen whether previous bidders will come forth or if the flute’s value has been reduced. Thanks again…