First half a Rudall from the Olwell shop and now ladies & gentlemen a Boosey & Co. Pratten perfected no. 7519 missing a few keys. Key system looks a mite French, yet not? Prehaps a special order?
item number: 170553189114
nooooo, not at all
Pratten’sPerfected flutes run a gamut of systems, and this one, if you notice the missing RH key, employed some of the Siccama idea for RH3.
PP flutes weren’t just 8keys. In fact, by the end of his life, Pratten’s system was a 17key behemoth. Rather clunky and silly and his efforts at perfecting the simple system flute in the old fingering became little more than the very flutes he was trying to avoid becoming!
I’ve often wondered how john hudson, the “inventor” of the Pratten’s Perfected flute, managed to find all the time he needed to try all the different designs. Some of the more famous images remaining of Pratten show him holding a flute quite similar to this one. I’ve yet to see an image of the man holding a 8key flute – or a Siccama flute, which is what he played for years before developing his own.
I wonder why they didn’t put a tuning slide 
Lorenzo, they did - this is the normal later form as seen on wooden Bohm flutes - often referred to as a “French” slide (look it up). The long metal upper body tenon with the wide cork lapping serves as the male part and the lining of the head slides inside it metal-to-metal whilst there is another, wider metal tube around that in the bulge of the headjoint that makes the airtight seal over the lapping. There is a good 12mm or so of tunability on this type of slide - less than on a simple system head & barrel, but generally less was needed by the period of this kind of flute - and they had to be built more exactingly to a particular pitch standard and weren’t much use far away from it. They were probably built to be at their design pitch once warmed up with the slide about 3-5mm open, to allow for a little sharpening capacity, but players would likely not have wanted to flatten them to the extent that the lapping became visible. FWIW, this flute is very likely seriously High Pitch, though one would need to know for sure what bore type is has (I can’t tell for sure from the photos) and its sounding length to speak to that.
Looks like short F key was on the stack that worked the lower Siccama key too. How much of the tenon on the lower part of the main body is missing? Assuming any is. My wooden Boehm has about 3/8" (9 mm) length there, not very long compared to simple systems. Was it standard to jacket that lower tenon in silver, ala French flutes? The upper tenon has a jacket, I see. Would like to snap this up at a decent price; that lower section is truly messed up which should keep the cost down. Siccama and a C brille, sweet.
Any sign of a crumpled horn?
It was knocked down for about $481 US. IF Jem is correct in surmising it is HP, this may not be such a good deal. I should guess that there could be somewhere above $1200-$1500 for refurbishing. . .and more if the lower tenon is compromised. . . . . .
Historic yes. . .sessionable. . .not so much.
For certain the Antique dealer came out. . .but did anyone else?
Bob