Last week I posted a couple of photos of my oldest pipe in “The Piano” string started by Furandfeather. It’s smokin’ but isn’t for smoking. It is a flute manufactured here in what is now the United States of America. Its maker’s mark doesn’t appear in any reference I can find nor does it appear in The New Langwill Index: a Dictionary of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers and Inventors. The mark is an incorrect Roman numeral, “ IIIV ”. I am unsure of the wood used in it manufacture (probably maple) and it has 5 keys. Not many flutes were made with that particular key configuration. This dates the manufacture to sometime between 1770 and 1775. During my research and in discussions about this flute with various experts and collectors around the globe, I have determined that there are 5 examples of this craftsman’s work in existence. Mine is the only one that still works and can be played.

I promised to relate how it came into my possession, so here goes. I used to work at St. Vincent’s Hospital here in Birmingham, Alabama. I had decided to earn a degree in music. I was attending one of the local junior colleges to brush up on my academics when I was awarded the “Dean Honor Scholarship” and the “President’s Scholarship” at the University of Montevallo.

One of the nurses at St. Vincent’s was a friend of mine she knew that I was about to leave to study music. Her father was an avid Garage Sale fiend. Over the years he had collected a basement full of junk. Her father (at that time) had just recently passed away. Both she and her mother were clearing out their basement one weekend when they came across what appeared to be a musical instrument; it had a paper price tag tied to it reading 50¢.

She brought it to me at work the following Monday, and said that I might like to have it and as a music student be able to appreciate it. She knew it was an instrument, but didn’t know what it was. I accepted it kindly. (I have to admit that I thought it was just a piece of junk but couldn’t refuse it. She meant well.) It was completely covered in caked on hard and dry “chirt” type clay. I thought it might be an old clarinet that was missing a mouthpiece and bell that had been in someone’s barn and wasn’t worth the effort it would take to clean it much less repairing it. I thanked her and took it home.

About a week later I decided that I would at least clean it up to see what it was. I washed most of the mud off and managed to take it apart in sections. During the cleaning process I found three cocoons and a piece of cork inside. There was also a single hand carved piece of wood, 2 inches long, which had peg like structure on one end, a screw, a washer like structure then a wood-screw like structure on the other end that transfixed the piece of cork. That’s when I realized that what I had wasn’t a clarinet but a “very” old flute. The piece of carved wood was the tuning mechanism. I spent several days conditioning the wood with lemon oil, which I believe to be Maple, but I can’t be sure.

I wrapped it in an old towel and took it to my piano teacher at the Jefferson State Junior College, he kept it a couple of days, (he re-corked it and put leather pads on the keys) and the next time I saw him he told me that it would put me through college. The Antiques Road Show came to town the very next week… so I took it to see if it really did have any value. The instrument expert told me that he had never seen one and he guessed that it was from the late 18^th century, and might be worth, five or six hundred dollars. He gave me a couple of names and phone numbers and I had it appraised. In 1982 it was valued by two different experts for “insurance purposes” at 35 to 45 thousand dollars. I took the flute back to Tracy. I explained to her the above and that I couldn’t keep it. She wouldn’t take it back. She told me to keep it, she told me that she knew that I would care for it and put it to good use.

It wasn’t long until I began to receive correspondence from collectors and museums around the world wanting me to “lend” or “donate” the flute to their collections. There were no offers of monetary compensation offered. The only museum to offer anything in return was the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. They said they would display it and I could come twice a year to clean and care for it, all tax deductible.

As many of you know I lecture history once in a while at the local universities. I love to pass it around the classes while I make my presentations, then explain at the end what it was they were handling. I feel sharing the flute with the students in this manner permits them the opportunity to not only handle a 230 year old flute, but to connect directly with pre-revolutionary America, besides the look upon their faces is priceless.

American Flute w/case

American Flute Assembled