Key of D, nicely made, sold by McCullough and Piggot in the 60s. Haven’t set a price to it yet. At least, not till I have a better idea of who made it. Someone thought it might have been made by Desi Seery. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Have you tried asking them? There may be a historian at their company’s current shop that might know where they sourced it. If it’s Hudsonesque, I suppose it could be Desi, but I wasn’t aware of him making flutes with the split hands, or that long ago. But then, I wasn’t even aware that anyone made keyless flutes like that during the '60s folk revival. I thought that began in the '70s with folks like Hammy Hamilton, Eugene Lambe, & Bruce Du Ve.
Yes, I did ask them. The firm changed hands about 20 years ago, the shop relocated, and the old records are gone.
You are correct about flutes like this not being made in Ireland in the 60s. It might be made later but that’s what the owner told me.
Sure is a mystery.
I was tempted to bid on that flute but couldn’t be 100% sure it wasn’t made in the middle east. It looks good, how does it play?
Interesting, JD. I’m imagining that the owner was wrong about the dates. And I’m unaware of anyone making flutes in the 60’s. Anyone have any idea when Desi Seery started making flutes?
What more can you tell us about the flute? Is the head fully lined? Brass? The holes look small to medium sized, can you measure or estimate the diameter of the R2 hole? Do we think the cork lapping is newly applied (it looks it). I guess we don’t know whether that was what it had originally. And no cap? Just a cork for the stopper?
I’m a bit intrigued because some of it looks like my early work - we even lined our cases like that in the early days, though normally with three slots. And didn’t stamp a name or number on them. But we never sold any through a shop, so that seems unlikely. And I didn’t normally fully line heads.
This is definitely not a flute made in the mid-east. Some of us are fairly certain that it is a flute made by Desi Seery. The date might be a bit off. It plays very nicely. Small holes. The rings are sterling. It plays in tune. The head is fully lined with brass slide. The flute came without a crown and we made a crown for the flute from ivoroid. The stopper is a piece of blackwood lined with cork.
I will post some pictures of the new crown, the repaired crack (nearly invisible), and some similar flutes made by Seery back in the day.
I’ve never seen a Seery flute with cork on the tenons.
It’s super easy to replace thread with cork.
Eric
re cork…
But not always advised.