Birthday wishes, Marguerite. I’d make an appointment with Mike Burke, drive up there and pick out one. I know its, what, five or six hours or am I way off in my geography? Or if he comes for some event closer to you, he travels with multiples for sale.
I purchased an Eb brass blacktip from Mike at the SF Tionol. It’s so much better to choose one from several than to order one by mail, find that it SEEMS good etc but always wonder if you could have had a better one.
I have to say that the Eb is a phenomenal whistle and got positives from crotchety old/young Murphy as well as Tony at the last whistle gathering.
Further, here is exactly what happened. Mike had four of the Ebs. I had a tuner with me, found a quiet place and spent a fair bit of time. It was down to two. One I really liked, but it had a note I didn’t care for. The other was more even, but not quite as sweet. I took the bunch back to Mike. He said, “Show me the one that is closest to what you like.” Then, instead of trying to fix that one, he took another one, did something to it when he was back in his hotel room and brought it back the next day. That was the one I bought and its a great whistle.
That experience has made me never want to buy another whistle by mail which leaves me perplexed as all the builders I am interested in live very far away from here. You all might say, well, send it back if you don’t like it. But until you have experienced a builder’s range within the same model,you just don’t know what the variation is and you don’t feel justified sending it back if its basically good, but VAGUELY un-good. Also, considering whistles are not as expensive as many other musical instruments, you feel like a weenie making too many demands. But if you have a spread before you, the problem is solved.
THis would likely apply to the other builders mentioned, too, though I know that for example, getting an ORiordan is not blessed with choice.
But getting back to Mike, I know for a fact that Joanie Madden picked through a LOT more than me of the same whistle before settling on one.
Its not exactly the way the builder wants to do business because its time consuming, etc. but it worked for me.
Good luck.
HAPPY 
I’ll leave it at “still young enough to get into mischief and old enough to have figured out how not to get caught.”