I have just been browsing ebay for wooden flutes and notice it seems to be swamped with nice looking instruments from Beijing, China. Has anyone out there purchased one of these flutes and if so what is their general opinion?
Cheers,
Dave.
I know there are many that will disagree with me, but I say never, never, never buy a musical instrument that you have not played. If you do, you take your chances.
A reputable maker or seller will let you return an instrument that does not please you.
They make great lamps…
I’d refer you to the sticky thread at the top of the page.
Dave, perhaps you can give us a link to the ebay flute(s) that you are referring to. I did a quick search on ebay looking for “Irish flute” and “wooden flute”. I didn’t see any wooden flutes where the seller said that they were made in China. The low-cost ebay wooden flutes that I have seen so far are most likely made in Pakistan, however, I am expecting to see Chinese simple system transverse flutes in the near future.
I searched Musical Instraments for Beijing China and came up empty…a link would be helpful
If the ad says something like:
Beautiful useful musical wind tool
Chances are its from China.
the ones from pakistan suck, but i would never buy a flute that isnt made by a high reputation artisan.
The chinese flutesmay get good.
They just might.
I had a complicated vintage electonic device replicated for me over there.
Not only did it work but I had a really hard time telling it a part from the real thing.
Had there been a patina of any kind I could have been fooled.
Indeed, you can see a number of good-quality musical instrument lines coming out of China. Eastman mandolins, for example, have a good reputation at an attractive price point. They are also pretty responsive to the market. A few years back, it was not very common to see any lower-end makers putting out oval-hole mandolins; once they started to become popular, Eastman was right there, filling a niche market for people who may have spent their wad on a high-end F-style and were looking for an inexpensive-but-good-quality oval hole. So i wouldn’t be surprised if within the next few years we see good-quality economy-priced timber flutes aimed at beginning players or Boehm or sax doublers who might be looking for something that won’t set them back too much but isn’t a piece of junk.
Yeah, I think you can count on it. Asia is figuring out that there’s a market for quality instruments at competitive prices. Cort guitars, in S. Korea, is turning out some remarkable stuff. My ‘Parkwood’ (Cort) guitar cost $500 and rivals the Gibsons, Martins and Guilds that I grew up with. In some ways I like it better. I tell myself they treat their workers fairly, and I’m trying to believe it. 
Probably not, by Western standards. OTOH they probably prefer a factory job to working in the fields. And in a few decades, the pay will be better over there.
I just found the motto for a mainland chinese flute company.
Your satifaction is assured!
我们做好长笛或我们杀害我们的工作者!
You should have told me that 30 flutes ago..
Actually I onl regretted buying one flute and it was from Pakistan, the other 29 turned out okay.
Jon, those Pakistan flutes do suck real bad! 
what a waste of money, those guys dont know what they are doing.
There’s a sucker born every minute…and two to take 'em.
I’d have to disagree… 
Well that was about 30 flutes ago, and it did motivate me to start making my own. Cuss that flute really sucked!
Someone told me they’d played one of these chinese wooden boehm flutes, and that the tone and playability were pretty good but the workmanship was shoddy and it wasn’t expected to hold up very well.
or maybe they DO know what they are doing. 
I admit to having bought one Pakistani flute, just to see how bad it really was (it was B A A D). And then there are the millions of people who don’t know enough about flutes or music to know any better.
However, the owners of the music stores who sell the flutes do know better. They know that their advertisement copy about the flutes is untrue. This amounts to deceit and the victimization of the public, IMHO.