hard to say isn’t it, certainly looks like wood. Nice photos. #937 also has a nearly full length crack through the (unlined?) head and another through the barrel - both repaired but somewhat less than invisibly.
Just thinking what would the tuning for A above middle C be for an English made flute made between 1827-1837? A=435 or lower/higher prehaps? Are R&R flutes from this period out of tune with themselves when the headjoint is adjusted to sound A=440/442 in order to play together with modern instruments tuned to play with A=440/442?
Just found this page: where a Rudall from possibly 1827 is said to have A=453!!!
I wonder if R&R’s were made tuned to different specifications depending on where the flute player was employed geographically? Or maybe most English made flutes were sold to English musicians and if a flute player was to play in say a French orchestra he would use a flute made in France?
That listing, Steampacket, of pitches is actually a direct lift from Rockstro’s book.
Rudall flutes run the gamut of tuning. Some in the 440 range spot-on (I own one in the 900-range of serial numbers and it’s dead-on 440 up and down, even to the D, mind you) and many are in the 452 range, where the flat D exists.
Key here is knowing the flutes were created at a time when International Pitch was not established or accepted such as today. It was all over.
We all say the tuning slide was invented to meet the vagaries of pitch, but frankly i think it was merely assist the variety of players out there meet their own issues as well as those climate problems that sharpen and flatten the flute as we play.
There is indeed a range, though, of the Rudall slides.
The seemingly standard pitch of the UK at the time Rudalls were big (c.1850) was ~452, or as we’d say today “high pitch.”
Also important: mean tone temperament was the standard of the day, not equal temperament tuning as it is today. That’s why the flat foot D, the flat F# and the sharp A and B. The math actually works it out pretty neatly.
But there were some equal temperament flutes made at the time. It’s all a crapshoot to find one!