mousecorns wrote:Hi Jem.
Do you know "Cornelius" from Llanidloes?
I can go one better than that - I
am Cornelius from Llanidloes. How's that for a claim to fame? I'd love to get to the Dolgellau session again sometime - it's been too long - but, unfortunately, Wednesday evenings are usually taken up.
Ace! Hi David.
Well, if you can make it to Selattyn sometime soon, let me know and I'll go along.
I can help with a little more info on Besson - on my Facebook there are some photos of New Langwill index entries for the firm. It had a complicated history and I don't think you're going to narrow down a date much. The flute is certainly French or heavily influenced in many details of the manufacturing, but could still have been made in London - perhaps by French craftsmen.
I have two Besson flutes here at present - one, a Tulou "flûte perfectionée" from the French F Besson Paris branch of the firm and detailed in
this FB photo album, which includes images of the Langwill Index entries for the firm. The other is an 8-key simple system Eb flute from the Besson & Co. London branch of the firm (it has the 184 Euston Rd address, the flourished capital B and 5-point star stamps and serial no. 10921. The keys are somewhat different in style from yours, but typically French on an otherwise Pratten-ish, large-holed English type flute. I haven't done a full photo set of it, but it is the bottom flute shown in this FB
picture of a bunch of Eb flutes. The long F key on yours with the reversed spring looks quite like that on the Boosey & Co in that shot! Unfortunately FB-uploaded photos can't be displayed here on C&F, so you'll have to follow the links.
OP's photo!
What is the sounding length of your flute (embouchure centre to foot end, slide closed?)
Couple of other points - the "flower" stamp isn't - it's a very fancily curlicued capital B. The black dots in the touch surfaces of the smaller keys will be the ends of spring screws, not rivets, almost certainly. It's an 8-key flute, not 7.