Hi,
Since replies are not allowed in the For-Sale section and I could not figure out how to edit the existing post I’ll offer this update here. The Burke composite low G & F and the Hardy low D are now on the Irish Flute Store’s pages.
The original post is at https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/fs-copelands-and-oriordans-and-others/86219/1
You are allowed to “reply” to your own message at specified intervals in order to bump it up to the top and keep on the UIE page.
Best wishes.
Steve
Oh, duh on me
Them babies will be long gone so you won’t have to be bumping anything. 
Just curious if anyone noted what these went for in an open auction. I saw that the O’Riordan high D went for about $800. How about the others?
Best wishes.
Steve
As you noted, the O’Riordan high D went for $800.
And the O’Riordan low D went for $720.
The Copeland low D closed at $1525.
And the Copeland low G commanded the princely sum of $2550.
There’s another Copeland low D auction underway if you missed out on the one above.
Feadoggie
So why are people bidding all week when the winning bid is made in the last few minutes?
And are there any serial numbers listed for any of these whistles?
I would think that posting whistles anywhere for sale would automatically include at a minimum, serial number or marking mentioned, photographs, and soundclip(s).
Because that’s how it is done.
Sensible people will bid what they think the instrument is worth and what they think they can afford. They may not win if there are snipers in the bushes.. But frequently enough that sensible strategy wins out. Remember, there’ll be another whistle just like it listed tomorrow, or the next day, or the next month.
If you have a bad case of WhOA and more money than good sense, you place a snipe bid for a ludicrous amount that will top anything anyone else bids (provided there is not someone crazier than you hiding in the next bush). The sniper wins, the price of vintage whistles in the market is falsely inflated and the world keeps on turning.
And consider that if you are a professional player and your sound is the Copeland sound and you feel that you need that whistle to maintain your livelihood. Then the snipe is the best way to guarantee you have a Copeland back home in the closet just in case your stage whistle gets stolen after a gig at Carnegie Hall. Michael is not making any more low G’s from what I gather.
In the case of these whistles, if you were paying attention to them, the sale was handled through Patrick Jones and the Irish Flute Store. So there are certain bonafides that come along with that. And they were listed on the IFS’s website with links to the eBay auctions. Decent albeit small photos were also available on the Irish Flute Store site.
Photos have been nicked in the past to support bogus sales. So while I think they are a good and standard practice they don’t constitute a guarantee of anything. You can always ask for additional photos of let’s say the blade and see what turns up. The old “my digital camera is broken” or “the dog ate it” response doesn’t fly.
Not all whistles have serial numbers, particularly Copelands. Michael did not stamp numbers on his early whistles for example.
Sound clips do not tell you much. And consider that many of these whistles are sold as estate items. The person selling them may not play at all. Even if the seller plays, they may be terrible players. So what does that tell you? It doesn’t even tell you if they have the whistle. They could use any recording of a whistle in a pinch.
Best route to success is to contact the seller if you are serious and start a dialog with them.. Things get real fast when you do that but may still not be an absolute guarantee of anything.
Feadoggie
“So why are people bidding all week when the winning bid is made in the last few minutes?”
It’s the mystery of Ebay! Iv’e never been able to figure that one out.
Also, why would anyone pay 2550$ for a Copeland G? 
Have you ever played a Copeland low G?
Thanks Feadoggie, you covered it all.
For MC low G $2550 perhaps MC might consider making one more whistle?
BTW, I was paying attention just for the amusement! and my ticker was pumping well, while I wasn’t even in the shootout.
Hope it turned out well for Doc and dean.
Feadoggie did indeed cover it all but one question was asked that might provide some insight into the eBay, or any auction, bidding process.
The reason one would bid early is that one wants the whistle. When I bought my first Copeland brass high D, I had been trying unsuccessfully for more than a year to acquire one through WTB listings here, eBay and other online auctions etc. I decided that I would pay up to $600 for one, which was slightly crazy at the time but Michael had already told me after I bought an alto G and alto F from him that he wasn’t making any more brass whistles and not likely any more low whistles. Since then I’ve only seen nickel silver high D’s from Michael so I guess he was serious.
There was no reserve and a $275 starting price for the brass high D I won. I offered $610 as the second eBay bidder on the first day of listing. Though there were 26 other bids, when the bid got to $460 and still weren’t the high bid others became discouraged. In the end, there was a flurry of activity but I got the whistle for $535. That would be a bargain today I guess.
I consider the alto G and alto F I got from Michael to be the best of his instruments and I have played and owned several in most other keys. I was surprised at the final bid for this alto G, since I paid Michael $425 for mine three years ago, but I don’t know of a better alto G whistle being made today. As Feadoggie stated “have you ever played a Copeland low G”?
Even at $2,550 it still doesn’t approach the cost of a really good guitar, or even many really good keyed flutes.
ecohawk
I am surprised that the G went for more than the D.
I had intended to bid on those, but I overslept on the day I was going to do so, I got up and remembered, got to the auction and there was less than one minute left! I have never seen an ebay auction in the final moments before. As soon as I saw the price climb up as high as it did, I decided… yeah, nevermind bidding on copelands. It was insane how the bids got dumped on there with just the tiniest amount of time left. I have never used ebay before, so it was kind of entertaining for me to see that.
Ecohawk has fleshed out my brief explanation of eBay bidding actually. He bid what he wanted to bid on his Copeland high D. It was his highest sensible well considered bid. Everyone else bid what they thought was sensible for them as well. Discouraged? Maybe, maybe not. If you bid what you think is sensible there is no reason to be discouraged. Someone could just as easily bid $700 thinking it was sensible at the time. There just wasn’t a sniper sitting in the bushes waiting to pick that auction off in the end. As I said, that strategy works out often enough. The sun will come out tomorrow and another whistle will come up for auction.
I did leave out one case in my outline above. Let’s say you are a retailer of second hand instruments. You need stock-in-hand to keep things going. And inflated prices for second hand instruments in good condition favors your bottom line. In that case you might want to snipe everything because it’s a win-win until the market crashes.
Feadoggie
I don’t understand how a sniper comes into this. Ebay auction snipering is to put in a last second higher bid, yes? Higher as been shown. But if your lodged maximum bid is higher, the sniper won’t get the deal. He might just succeed to drive the final winning bid price up.
Hans, you are mostly right. There is no automated last-second bidding within eBay. That’s the domain of the sniping programs. So you are right that if you place a high enough bid in the first place, as Ecohawk did, you will win out in the end. But the snipers will offer ludicrous maximum bid amounts to win and the sniping program kicks in and bids at the last second so that it is not possible to outbid them using customary eBay facilities. This works somewhat reasonably if the normal eBay bidders only bid reasonable amounts such that the winning bid is only slightly beyond the highest reasonable amount. However, when snipers cross paths at the last seconds things can and do get into unreasonable territories. And as a result you can see some of these whistles come up for bid again after a non-payment. And so the process continues.
It does look like the seller made out well on these whistles and hopefully the amount met their immediate needs. They still have a couple whistles in Doc’s shop on consignment from what I can see.
Feadoggie
Hmmm, what is a “highest reasonable bid”? And what is a “ludicrous maximum bid”? Obviously, if some guy sets his sniper software to some maximum he cannot afford to pay, that could be considered unreasonable or plain stupid. But if he can pay, it could be considered reasonable. Using such sniper software to do last second higher bidding may look like bad form, but since ebay does not stipulate that potential bidders have to make at least one bid say at least an hour, or eight, or a day before the auction ends, it seems perfectly okay to use such robot actions. Ebay auctions are nothing like normal auctions, and do not to behave like these, as there is a time limit on each. So given there is a time the auction ends, and knowing it, why do any bidding before the end draws near? To launch a last minute bid seems perfectly reasonable.
A last few second snipe style bid is an effective strategy. When a strong bid competitor has entered their highest reserve bid prior to the auction ending and sees another bid competitor out bid them, they have time to reassess their high bid and possibly modify their their reserve upward. Showing no bid interest and having your bid tendered in the last 3 seconds may take the current conventional high bidder out of the competition. The conventional bidder can run the clock out thinking he has it in the bag with plenty reserve?
Sniping is effective and something I’ve learned is don’t bid to a reserve of which you would like to buy an item at, but bid the last dollar which you are willing to pay and hope to pay less. I have plenty experience with this in another realm. Respectfully, tim
ps…I lusted after that Copeland G but at mid auction knew I was not a player (smile).
What magic does the Copeland have?
What qualities do they dearly love?
I am so enticed by the Sorcery it possess.
The magic draws me, I can not resist.
Oh my money, it does fly away,
Drifting away through my Ebay,
How many men will be drawn near?
The prices goes up, o damn, I fear.
How many men, who have more money than sense?
I can not compete with this amazing expense.
O dear Copeland, your music I want to try.
But losing in ebay… damn, I’ll cry 