Solid silver alto flute in G by Rudall Carte & Co. Ltd

Flutes

No collectables website would be complete without a Rudall Carte & Co. flute. This exquisite, solid silver alto flute is a beauty to behold and was made by England’s finest flute-makers of the mid-twentieth century.  The company was established in 1872 as successors to Rudall Rose, Carte & Co and was bought in 1943-1944 by Boosey & Hawkes. The history of this great company is fascinating and we would recommend reading Robert Bigio’s fine work on the subject.

The mechanical work of this instrument is outstanding and everything is made with superior precision. The keys for the left hand are constructed so that the flute can be easily played without so much reach [essential for such a long flute!]. The lip plate is convex in shape and the embouchure is perfectly crafted. Funnily enough, the keys for the trills are positioned on the outer side of the flute, not facing the player as usual.

All the keys and the tube are hallmarked for silver purity with English markings. This includes the lion for sterling silver, a tiger’s head for London and a ‘P’ for the year of manufacture. Also, there is a special hallmark ‘RC&CO’.

This alto flute in G plays warm at a=440 Hz.

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G-sharp key

Open/closed G-sharp key
The open G-sharp key was promoted by Theobald Boehm. So, G-sharp is fingered like a G on the modern-day flute and G is fingered like the modern-day G-sharp. The open G-sharp key mechanism avoids having an additional second G-sharp tone hole, which is not optimal in acoustical terms.
The closed G-sharp key is the regular mechanism on modern day instruments as well as traditional conical wooden more-keyed flutes. G-sharp is obtained by pressing the G-sharp lever. G is produced by pressing down all four fingers of the left hand.
Theobald Boehm’s open G-sharp was not successful in the end and is no longer used in flute-making, with some exceptions.