Used Whistle Prices and other ITM flutes

[Tommy]

I always thought it would be cool to live in a lighthouse.

But you have to be a lighthouse keeper to do that, and I never see those jobs advertised anywhere. I guess you got to know the right people ...

Correct. You have to be a descendant of a lighthouse keeper to apply.

[Latticino]

Correct. You have to be a decedent of a lighthouse keeper to apply.

Not exactly sure how you can apply for the position if you pre-decease the current occupant... , but I guess since lighthouse keeping is fairly solitary it doesn't matter if you are a spirit?

[ytliek]

Just buy new whistles and keep the makers making. Nothing like the fresh sound/feel of air coursing thru the whistle tube first thing in the morning.

[Tommy]

Correct. You have to be a decedent of a lighthouse keeper to apply.

Not exactly sure how you can apply for the position if you pre-decease the current occupant... , but I guess since lighthouse keeping is fairly solitary it doesn't matter if you are a spirit?

Hmmmmmm……… It appears I have used the incorrect term. So what is the term for a relative of a lighthouse keeper?

kin, kinsman, kinswoman, relation

[Mr.Gumby]

I never see those jobs advertised anywhere. I guess you got to know the right people ...

There's another way!

[Latticino]

Correct. You have to be a decedent of a lighthouse keeper to apply.

Not exactly sure how you can apply for the position if you pre-decease the current occupant... , but I guess since lighthouse keeping is fairly solitary it doesn't matter if you are a spirit?

Hmmmmmm……… It appears I have used the incorrect term. So what is the term for a relative of a lighthouse keeper?

kin, kinsman, kinswoman, relation

Sorry, was just making an admittedly poor quip regarding the difference between decedents and descendants.

[hidancity]

Very sound and well reasoned replies. I very much appreciate the responses

Sounds to me like you are complaining that owners are not dropping the prices of used instruments they want to sell, for whatever reason, to where you would like them to be.

No, not complaining. Making an observation. After a few rounds on the classified, and checking what's available and then going to makers pages, I began to scratch my head and think, something is different here than in other markets. That's why I posted the question.

Sounds to me what you guys are all saying, is it's a sellers market. For now at least. I know a few things about markets whether it's Fine Art, Antique Jade, Tobacco Spittoons, Green Lantern glow in the dark rings or Irish Whistles, they are subject to laws of supply and demand and cycles.

I like feardoggie, like buying low and selling high. Real Estate values do depreciate like 2008, and if my calculations are right, we could be in for a long deflationary flow. You know the kind that people start listing flutes to pay bills.

Economies aren't uniform. Cities I've seen in California are busted, while NYC has a real estate boom. They are giving away entire neighborhoods in Detroit Same goes for instrument categories. Depends which one you are talking about. yes, my brothers Selmer Mark VI from the 80's is worth a bundle. And although he doesn't play currently, investment guru and busy life, he's taking that thing to the grave. You know, sentimental value.

Also, like was mentioned classifieds might not represent other market venue's. I can get a nice shiny silver coin from a dealer at spot. On Ebay, they want spot and your first born. It baffles me that these market survives and guys just don't pick up the phone. It's not about complaining, it's about principle. I don't complain about markets. I just try to understand them and I am of the mind, that the market is always right. Whether I like it or not. It's just hard to understand why people participate in a market like the coin market on ebay.

While some whistles might represent a boutique market, seems to me there is also the mass producers to compete with even if they aren't desirable as a $500 Oz whistle.

A funny thing happens during deflationary times and money gets tight. While Certain luxury items always do good like Porsches because the people who can afford them can always afford them and wait in line. But not so sure Irish whistles fit that category. Nor do the majority of instruments on the market probably rise to the level of fine art, like a nice collector gold coin.

But fair enough. Your points are well taken. It's a sellers market for now. At least what I see on the Chiff. Real life might be a bit different hanging around the other musicians at sessions and in that situation I might be more willing to pay premium prices. Might have to hit a few soon. (not for purposes of looking for used instruments)

I'm going to be interested to watch this market over the next two years and see if the same rules apply. I got a sneaky suspicion that the spread between the price of a new flute and used one are going to start increasing.

Maybe it's time to send some of those top notch whistles to China and get them in on the act;) No joke. A few years ago you wouldn't dream of buying a Chinese made Boehm flute without concern that one day all the keys would fall off or the metal would melt on a hot day. Now, if you know what you are looking for, they are making some very competitive priced Boehm flutes and other wind instruments that could give Yamaha's a run for their money. They are showing up at NAMM Conventions and I'm told they are no joke. The funny paradox is that their folk flutes definitely have some quality issues especially the materials but their western flutes keep getting better.

Anybody want to lend me their Copeland for a month so I can take it with me to China to have some guys I know take measurements?

[Tommy]

You mean everybody doesn't live in trailers?

Trailers? Heavens no! "Tiny Houses" are presently all the rage.



"A rose by any other name .... "

James Taylor : Lighthouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwo9nzdaFfA

[Peter Duggan]

But fair enough. Your points are well taken. It's a sellers market for now. At least what I see on the Chiff.

I don't think it is. Or, if it is, curiously only for overpriced Sindts, Copelands etc. Otherwise see the number of decent instruments that hang on for weeks or months with steady price reductions that ultimately suggest the opposite. On which note I've always applied my own buyer's logic (wouldn't dream of paying 80/90% of new price for a secondhand instrument!) to pricing what I've sold and still sat waiting for my instruments to go. For sure I'm prepared to wait and/or not sell when there's a floor below which I won't drop, but I'm still seeing plenty priced above a ceiling to which I wouldn't go. So IMHO not a sellers' market unless we're talking sellers who don't want to sell!

[pancelticpiper]

There is something I've been observing that seems unique to the ITM whistle and other flute markets. And that is sellers of used flutes don't believe their flutes depreciate much once it is out of the hands of the maker or the retail stores. Often I see flutes put up for sale with only a small fraction taken off 10% or less. Often it is for flutes that are from makers with waiting list. I can't tell if the market tolerates this sort of price scheme or these flutes end up running their life span without any takers. I don't think I've ever sold a flute, even in great condition, for anything less than 20 to 25% lower than the original retail price.

I've not been in the flute buying/selling thing for quite a few years, no comment about flutes. But with Low Whistles, which I have bought and sold a large number of over the last decade, indeed they sell for used somewhat cheaper than the makers are currently selling them for.

As you suspect it's different with makers who 1) are deceased 2) have stopped making or 3) have closed their wait lists for with such makers their instruments can only be had used. For these makers, what their instruments might cost new is irrelevant and/or unknowable.

Then there are the makers who are still making but have very long wait lists. For such makers each buyer must decide for himself what it's worth to get an instrument in the hands now, rather than wait for an instrument which the buyer might or might not ever receive. (A very famous uilleann pipe maker died with a ten-year wait list.)

Most of the instruments I play are quite old, the makers long gone, and these instruments sell for many times what they originally cost.

As a buyer, I value making connections with the makers... I like we can discuss my needs and establish a relationship for future purchases. I like that they are known within a community and have a stake in maintaining a good reputation in the community or else they know somebody is going to post comments that could effect their business. From a used seller, it's an unknown quantity.

40 years in this Traditional Music world has caused me to be the opposite.

It's happened over and over again, over four decades, to me and to other musicians I know, to go through the following process:
1) you hear great things about a maker. You play several instruments he made, they are great.
2) you get on the wait list. You wait for years.
3a) the instrument finally comes and it's mediocre, bearing little resemblance to the instruments you had previously played by the same maker.
OR
3b) the instrument never comes, and you might or might not get your down-payment back.

This has happened to me and to friends over and over, with uilleann pipe and Irish flute and high-end Low Whistle makers of the highest reputation, who have made great instruments, some in the hands of prominent players.

I could go into tedious details, but I'll spare you all. Suffice it to say that I can't, offhand, think of a single instance of me getting on the wait list for an uilleann pipe maker or Irish flute maker where I was eventually sent an instrument which played as well as numerous examples by the same maker I had previously played. The caveat is that my Irish flute experiences were a long time ago, back in the 1980s. With uilleann pipes bad experiences have continued until fairly recently. Communication with many makers, I've found, is about as productive as talking to a stone. There have been multiple instances of me telling a maker that I've played a number of their instruments and I want an instrument as close as possible to their previous work, and the maker telling me that no worries, they have an established pattern that they never vary from, only to be sent an instrument that's clearly different from several examples in the hands of friends (different bore, different tone-hole placements, etc).

ONLY when you actually have an instrument in your hands do you know what you're getting. I'm done, pretty much, with new instruments.

Since ITM flutes are not my primary flute nor my colleagues, we sit around trying different things.

This statement strikes me as odd, as it implies that people who play Irish flutes as their primary instrument do not try different things.

In my 35+ years of Irish fluteplaying I found the opposite to be true. At a festival I've seen in a great many times: a circle of Irish fluteplayers discussing their flutes. Soon the flutes are getting passed around the circle. If it gets really serious people start swapping headjoints, seeing how various flutes play with different headjoints.

I took two Low D whistles. One a wooden one that doesn't seem to sell well, and a very popular aluminum one which is in demand. I guess I could trade it right away because every so often I see WTB. The non-Irish players I have had test them always prefer the less popular one than the Irish ones.

Well, I wouldn't go to a non-tuba player for opinions about tubas, and I wouldn't go to a person that doesn't play ITM for opinions about ITM instruments.

I have found, in many years of studio work, that "legit" Reed Men (sax/clarinet/flute guys) tend to favour different things in whistles than ITM whistleplayers do.

[hidancity]

On which note I've always applied my own buyer's logic (wouldn't dream of paying 80/90% of new price for a secondhand instrument!)

My point exactly!

but I'm still seeing plenty priced above a ceiling to which I wouldn't go. So IMHO not a sellers' market unless we're talking sellers who don't want to sell!

Again, my point. But the other comments suggest, we are talking houses, not cars. And the market tolerates those prices. If the market tolerates those prices, sellers market. If not, and those things expire unsold. Than maybe not so much a sellers market. Again, I don't window shop flutes when I'm not buying.

My comments were referring to some of the high end whistles I saw on sale and only in maybe a two week period. The last time I looked (and I stopped looking) there were a couple reputable whistles being sold at near retail prices. That observation doesn't include all the instruments and a long period of examination. So again, why I put it out as a question.

I did coffee put up a low Viper and put a price on it that if I didn't have one, I'd buy it. Seems like a sweet deal to me. So yeah, not everything listing is as I described.

[hidancity]

This statement strikes me as odd, as it implies that people who play Irish flutes as their primary instrument do not try different things.

No, I wasn't implying that. Obviously that is what fluties do. Compare notes, swap instruments, ask for feedback.

I play with what you might call a world fusion band. A couple of guys from S. America so there is a lot of Andean music, flutes, notched flutes, pan flutes, zampona's, we play Chinese flutes, Irish music, S. American music with Irish flutes etc... I just happened to get a new haul of flutes, and I'm trying desperately to get the other flute players up to speed on other world instruments. They are good players, and I entice them all every time I show them my wares, but I want them to get their heads and hands around other instruments. They aren't motivated enough to seek out the Chiff and Fipple and learn the lay of the land of flutes. So I bring it to them. Having them play the other instruments will free's me up to play what I want. I write arrangments and mix flutes and traditions. I might hear an arrangement by somebody like Lunasa, and do my own thing and mix other flutes for interesting sonoraties. Yeah, I know not traditional.

So I just got a haul of new Irish flutes. I sat them down and said, play these. Give me your feedback.

Well, I wouldn't go to a non-tuba player for opinions about tubas, and I wouldn't go to a person that doesn't play ITM for opinions about ITM instruments.

Kind of apples and oranges. My colleagues all play flutes. They have been flute for livelihood all their lifes. It's not such a stretch for a person that can play notched flutes and transverse flutes to pick up a whistle. Other cultures have whistles too. Not a stretch because they are more than capable at judging whether an instrument is in tune, see if they think it plays well up through all the registers, make a comment or two one ergonomics, sonority etc.... It might not be an informed opinion by a lifetime ITM player but it's an opinion by an experienced professional. I'm already familiar with the opinions of the ITM players on various flutes. I wanted specifically to hear opinions of somebody who has absolutely no biases. Doesn't know a generation from an Oz from a Copeland. Just a piece of metal or wood with a mouthpiece.

They obviously can't make distinctions like whether or not it would be a good session whistle. We use microphones and amplifiers and geared for live performance but not in a pub. In one case, they much preferred the wooden low whistles to the metal. Of course, these guys have bias's too coming from a culture where no flutes are metal. Mostly bamboo and wood.

I recently got a Patten by a good maker. Might have been on one of Chiff's road tours. I had never played a Patten but played plenty of tranverse flutes. It might be one of the best flutes I ever tried in any tradition. Of course, I haven't tried a dozen different pratten's. But I think I'm experienced enough to judge the playability of the flute. This thing plays like butter. As good of flute, in any tradition, I ever tried. I have a feeling once I start trying other Pratten's, my opinion won't change. What might happen is I'll start to develop preferences. But a good flutes is a good flute. Irish, or Chinese

[pancelticpiper]

They have been flute for livelihood all their lifes... they are more than capable at judging whether an instrument is in tune, see if they think it plays well up through all the registers, make a comment or two one ergonomics, sonority etc... I wanted specifically to hear opinions of somebody who has absolutely no biases.

Everyone has biases.

Just different ones.

I had never played a Patten but played plenty of tranverse flutes. It might be one of the best flutes I ever tried in any tradition. But I think I'm experienced enough to judge the playability of the flute. This thing plays like butter. As good of flute, in any tradition, I ever tried... a good flutes is a good flute.

I believe this to be true. A good flute, whether it be a silver Boehm flute or a wood Irish flute or a wood Baroque flute or a bamboo Indian flute, will have certain playing characteristics that any good fluteplayer can discern.

Perhaps the best Irish flute I've ever played was an original Pratten, I think from around 1850 or 1860. The low range was HUGE- you could "push" Bottom D harder and harder and it just wouldn't break to the 2nd octave. Yet the entire 2nd octave was sweet and pure and easy. The voicing was incredibly consistent, given the large variation in hole size and placement. The tuning was perfect. It was temporarily lent me by the owner, who I don't think will ever part with it.

I've only dabbled in Boehm flutes, having owned a student model with plated body and sterling head. I was loaned a vintage Powell flute and wow- it was amazing. The same powerful low range and amazingly easy high range- everything was easier on it than on any Boehm flute I'd tried. You could play 3rd octave notes as soft and sweet as you please, without effort.

YET on the other hand I stand by my statement, borne out by many discussions and encounters with some of the best studio fluteplayers in Hollywood, the guys you hear on every movie score, that some "legit" fluteplayers prefer a rather different voicing on whistles than ITM whistleplayers tend to do. These fluteplayers show up at gigs with a large number of "world" flutes including Irish whistles. Some show up with a complete set of gleaming Burkes in every chromatic key. Some show up with a few beat-up poor-playing Generations. The ones I've talked to prefer a large pressure-gap between the low octave and the 2nd octave. Myself, and many ITM whistleplayers I've talked to over the years, prefer a light easy nimble 2nd octave.

On Irish flutes I don't want a crisp breaking-point between the octaves, I like to be able to sit on that tone halfway between the octaves.

I recently got a Pratten by a good maker

Which maker? There were only two, I believe, Hudson, and Boosey.

If anyone else made it, it's not a Pratten, but a flute "inspired" by a Pratten, or copied from a Pratten.

[hidancity]

My very first question was were whistles being overpriced based upon the sell or expiration rate. I have seen the bumps and the subsequent lower prices.

So, if Peter Duggan is correct that the whistles are not selling even after reductions, then ok, it's not a sellers market. It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a house or a car. The market decides. If ads are expiring than my first observation is correct. They are overpricing or they are not seriously trying to sell it. If they are infact selling, then the flute is a house observations are correct and my initial observation would be incorrect.

I really don't know which one it is because I'm not a serial classified shopper.

Maybe people want their flutes to be house but the markets are seeing cars. If there are no bids, on the ask, you are either pricing it wrong (if you are really intent in selling it) or you are just testing the waters to see what they can get and if they don't get what they want, they put back in the closet until their market comes around.

I'm suggesting, that time might not come but I've not done a technical analysis of this market, if it is in a growth or decline phase. It's gotta be one or the other. Even horizontal markets are in a phase of deciding if they want to go up or down. Fine ARt markets, collector coins and Irish Whistles no matter, they all obey market forces.

I can only speculate based on accurate information of how well used flutes are selling on this site. Ultimately, that's my question. That answer will tell me if they are houses, lighthouses or trailers. I'm not pretending to be an expert on the success rate of used flutes that are priced very close to their full retail price. And maybe nobody else is keeping good track either. I just know that I don't think I will be a market participant in the used market if it's houses. I'll keep the makers alive and prospering.

Everyone has biases.

Just different ones.

Yup, that's why I mentioned their material biases.

The ones I've talked to prefer a large pressure-gap between the low octave and the 2nd octave. Myself, and many ITM whistleplayers I've talked to over the years, prefer a light easy nimble 2nd octave.

Yup, I understand the penchant for whistles with a larger pressure gap. That's Me. When you are playing a larged bore notched flute, with big finger holes, you have to work your butt off to get into the third octave. Even having to play a Boehm in the third octave. Hopefully, you are working efficiently and the effort is just part and parcel of the music making process. It's more akin to playing lead trumpet in a jazz orchestra. Especially if you are playing in a band with percussion, bass's, guitars and other flutes. It's got to sing like a great Operatic Tenor. Then when you switch to something like a Freeman Bluebird whistle, you feel like you are playing a toy. I enjoy playing that in the park, but I can't get it to mix well with all the other instruments. So guys who play many flutes with bigger air requirements and are engaging their embouchures in ways that you don't with a whistle, you want to make a transition that isn't so huge.

Many saxophonists or even brass players will tell you the same thing. They like to work and there is something about the resistance that is actually enjoyable. Even guys who play an Akai EWI set it up to give it resistance when it can be set up to play with very little like a recorder. IMO, The resistance is the door to a greater range of dynamics from pp to FFF. I might see things differently in 10 years or if I decided to just play ITM music full time. Small bore instruments, there isn't much room for variation in dynamics but understand you get the tone that you enjoy. I wouldn't want to play a piano where the keys didn't provide any resistance either.

[awildman]

I don't know that there is ever such a thing as a seller's market. Nobody is putting a gun to the buyer's head. You seem to keep implying that this is something that sellers are responsible for. Simply not true. The buyers are the only ones responsible for the prices.

You also seem to keep implying that people selling their "waitlist" instruments at high prices is common. Is it really? I have never seen one of these actually sell. Have you? If it is not common, does such a sale even impact the market at all?

Seriously, there is very little money to be made in used Irish instruments. These instruments are an expense. They are not an investment. The market reflects this very well. I really don't see anything at all unusual about the way prices drop on used instruments.