I recently bought a “vintage whistle” off of ebay.
The piece looks vintage enough. It is, in color, a very dull gunship grey with scratches, dents and most convincingly small patches of rust. After playing, I’ve determined that the whistle is in the key of C, and it has a nice tone. The whistle somewhat resembles a Clarke whistle in that it is a conical bore whistle with a wooden fipple secured by punching of the surrounding squared metal, which looks to be tin. However, at the E hole the whistle bends down at an angle of about 15 to 20 degrees (I assure you…the bend is supposed to be there). It’s beautiful! Also similar to Clarke whistles the whistle I have appears to be made of a sheet of metal, wrapped and soldered. There is, however, no extra material within the bore of the whistle as the modern Clarke displays. So a side question is…when was soldering invented…how? The soldered seem is the only part of the whistle that is not dark gunship grey, but rather a silver color. Is this typical of vintage? Just below the fipple hole is stamped “MODEL.” I thought this to be a manufacturer name, but a teacher thought this to be the beginning of a model number or description.
Any info???
