I've always held American flutes from the early to mid 19th century in the highest regard, and a few really nice ones have passed through my hands, most recently this fine example by William Hall & Son
The stamp reads...
WILLIAM HALL & SON
239 BROADWAY
N YORK
... and it is hard to read, the impression being very light, this image being the best I can come up with even with photoshop.
The NLI entry indicates that he was possibly an apprentice of Meacham, and worked for Riley along with Firth, with whom he had a partnership, and also with Pond, as Firth Hall & Pond, in New York and later Litchfield CT between 1833 and 67. In 1847 he set up independently with his son James. He seems to have moved his workshop around quite a bit, and he was at the 239 Broadway address at three separate periods between 1848 and 58.
The flute is in really excellent condition, and only required new lapping on the joints, and new pads, to instantly play easily and beautifully down to the low C.
It did require a little surface cleaning, not unusually, but what the cleaning revealed was interesting...that the flute is not cocus, as I superficially suspected, but rather Platymiscium, making it only the second Amercian flute that I'm sure is made from this timber. ( see this blogpost )
Sometimes it is possible to convey how Platymiscium actually differs from Cocus by photography, but in the vast majority of cases, I rely on having the instrument in my hand to make the distinction. I'll come back to that, but for the moment here are some other images, displaying elements of very tasty, and in some cases perhaps, unique workmanship.
The keys for example are of a common kind with a shallow cup, and the key shaft brought to a point and tapered down to a thickness a little smaller than the cup depth.
It was only when I was re-padding and had removed the old pads and shellac, that I realised that the shafts were in fact riveted to the cups...
...a most unusual arrangement, which I have to admit to never seeing before, and all the keys were assembled in this way.
If you look carefully at the second photo in the sequence, you can see the distinct absence of solder in the gap between the shaft and the cup. This now makes me think...were in fact other similar keys by American makers also constructed like this, and I didn't just look hard enough? Comments welcome from those familiar with American 19th century flutes.
Blocks and seatings are neatly made with beautiful curved sides to the blocks
Unusually, the blocks on the foot joint for C and C#, and the short F also have curved sides, something again is rarely seen, but I have seen it on an American flute before...in fact the very Rönnberg referred to above.
And of course that Rönnberg was also made from Platymiscium, a wood which Rönnberg himself seemed to identify with what he called Grenadilla [see
this blog post].
Although earlier I claimed that it's hard to distinguish Platymiscium from other timbers photographically, the very large size of the vessels, which is characteristic and normally observable on the end grain, can sometimes be noticed as a much coarser "grain" than is found with cocus. This can be seen in the two photos of the seatings above, but is clearly noticeable in this image.
It was only after I had noted the similarities with the Rönnberg flute that I re-read the "Rönnberg Continued" post and realised that he had in fact worked for Firth & Hall, before setting up for himself. There's surely a possibility that Rönnberg had a hand in the making of this flute. I'd be interested to find out if anyother Rönnberg flutes have riveted key cups.
