This beautiful Louis LOT cocuswood, conical ring-key flute is in playing condition. It was made shortly after Louis Lot had retired and the company was under the ownership of Honoré Désiré VILLETTE – Lot’s first successor. Villette was born on 20.04.1827 in Sorel Moussel – a small village about 10 kilometres away...
In the 19th century, several inventors patented ideas to enable the flute to be played vertically. This meant that the flute was held vertically, but blown transversely. Enter the fascinating ‘Giorgi’ flute! This particular Giorgi flute is in excellent condition and probably dates from around 1896-1900. It plays at a=440 Hz...
Here is a really sweet, fifth flute by METZLER – in this case, we think by Martin METZLER (ca. 1755-1809). Very little is known about Martin Metzler and his time in London. We do know that he rented dwellings in the area of Norton Folgate until about 1788. Martin Metzler was...
This third flute was made by the Bavarian maker Johann Samuel STENGEL (1771-1826). Johann Samuel was the first in a generation of woodwind instrument makers in the business for around 100 years in total. Johann Samuel was born in 1771 in Döhlau/Hof (about 60 kms from Bayreuth) and was a...
Wow! What we have here is an ivory flute made around 1740, perhaps in England. The flute is beautifully made and features a solid-silver key. The profiles are very finely and masterfully turned and demonstrate superior craftmanship. The embouchure is small and round and in perfect, original condition. The key...
Here is an exciting little instrument for flute collectors and enthusiasts everywhere. It is a double-wall piccolo… made in Italy. So, what do we mean by double wall? Double-wall metal wind instruments featured a hollow body with two tubes. This innovation was first patented in 1879 in Italy by Agostino RAMPONE...
Here is an exciting instrument for flute collectors and enthusiasts everywhere. It is a double-wall silver flute made by the maestro Agostino RAMPONE (1843-1897) in Italy. Double-wall metal wind instruments featured a hollow body with two tubes. This innovation was first patented in 1879 in Italy by Agostino Rampone who submitted...
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...
Here is a five-keyed flute by LEONHARDT. Some initial research has led us to a flute made by the same maker at the Michaelstein Abbey collection in Germany. A boxwood clarinet by Leonhardt with the same stamp was also recently sold at auction in the UK. This instrument is crafted in...
This is a fabulous ten-keyed flute made in Vienna in 1851 at the workshop of the family of Stephan KOCH (1772-1828). Stephan Koch made all kinds of woodwind instruments, including bassoons, csakans and clarinets in his workshop in Vienna. However, he is most known for his improvements to the design...
Ebonite was invented in 1839 by Charles Goodyear. He found that he could obtain a black material, which was rigid rather than elastic, by mixing together and heating latex and sulphur. The result was a hard rubber and it was given the name ebonite because both the colour and consistency were very similar to ebony (heartwood).
Ebonite would go on to be used in the manufacture of many objects including high-quality fountain pens, bowling balls, clocks, electrical insulating material or saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces.
Ebonite was also employed as an alternative material for making flute bodies. It seems it was first used in flute making in the mid-1800s by New-York-based Alfred G. Badger and other makers followed suit. It was thought to be very advantageous as a material because it did not absorb water, was durable and difficult to break. It was also a bad conductor of heat which meant that alterations in air temperature would not affect the pitch of the flute.
The famous ‘Giorgi Flute’ was made entirely of ebonite (with metal rings) rather than wood by the London firm Joseph WALLIS & Son Limited in around 1900. It was not only constructed in this new hard rubber material, but had no keys!
Cocuswood is the very dense hardwood of a Caribbean flowering tree called the ‘Brya ebenus’.
‘Brya ebenus’ belongs to the pea family ‘Fabaceae’ and is native to the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Cuba. It also goes by the quite romantic name of Jamaica Rain Tree because it blossoms bright yellow-orange flowers right after it rains.
Cocuswood’s lovely medium to dark reddish-brown colour is further enhanced with dark blackish streaks. With time, its colour darkens. The grain of cocuswood tends to be straight or a bit wavy. It has a wonderful natural lustre and a fine, even texture.
So absolutely nothing to do with coconuts or coconut trees at all! Really!
With its amazing density, hardness and colour, it’s no wonder that this wood was considered to be one of the very best tonewoods and was widely used in the manufacture of woodwind instruments in the 1800s. It was an exotic, tropical alternative to woods such as boxwood, which were widely used at the time. Flutes, oboes and bagpipes were crafted in cocuswood as well as other items such as carvings or inlays.
Back then cocuswood was all the rage and sadly, due to this previous over-exploitation and the small size of its natural habitat, this wonderful natural resource has been commercially exhausted. So, it is not a protected species, but extremely expensive and difficult to source – making it a very special wood indeed.
