Seeing an instrument come back to life

I have an old flute which I found in a charity shop (thrift shop) about 15 years ago. It was in awful condition, clearly hadn’t been played for about fifty years (quite possibly more) but by the wear on the holes it had clearly been played a lot over the previous century. It’s now been fettled by a great restorer and I’ve been playing it nearly every day for ages, and now it sings like a nightingale (and the more you play it the better it sounds). I wonder about the original owners and whether they would be surprised to hear their flute down a pub playing some Irish stuff like the Crosses of Annagh (it loves that tune)

It might sound a bit crystally, but it makes you think of all the other tunes that have been played on it and that the instrument itself has an identity (it certainly has a voice). Does anyone else have an experience of rescuing a decades-unplayed instrument and giving it its voice back?

I’ve restored dozens of violins so the effect has worn off to some extent. But still, when I come across a fiddle that is labelled with a date, I land up thinking about what the world was like when it was made - a fiddle made in 1804, at the same time as the very first steam locomotive; one from 1768, before Captain Cook’s expedition, when people didn’t even know that Australia and New Nealand existed; my own favourite fiddle from 1814, a year before the battle of Waterloo. Unusual wear patterns do it too - a fiddle with all the varnish worn away on the lower bout by some Victorian gentleman’s bushy beard, one with the edges completely worn off on one side from being carried many miles in a coffin case. That sort of thing.

I had a similar thing with a set of Highland pipes.

An American tourist had bought them in an antique shop in Scotland in the 1970s and, when they returned from holiday, had hung them over their fireplace as decor.

And there they hung until around 2010 when the owner decided to sell them. He put them in a box and took them to the owner of a local Scottish imports shop to try to peddle. The shop owner told him that he’d be lucky to get $800 for them.

I took one look and knew that they were fine old pipes by RG Lawrie Glasgow. The wood and ivory was covered in grime. The metal fittings had tarnished to chocolate brown and I had no idea what metal they could be. But there were no cracks in the wood or ivory (evidently that fireplace was never lit) and I happily paid the $800.

I stayed up most of that night cleaning the wood and ivory, then set to work on the metal. It looked like heavily tarnished copper, though I’d never seen such on an old pipe.

With polish and rub, polish and rub, eventually down beneath the dark brown I could see the faintest glint of silver! A couple hours later I had a fine c1905 silver & ivory set with clean wood, polished ivory, and gleaming silver.

The chanter, bag, and bag-cover (none original to the pipes) suggested that the pipes had last been played in the 1960s, and had been played by a good player.

“. . .one from 1768, before Captain Cook’s expedition, when people didn’t even know that Australia and New Zealand existed. . . ”. I rather think that some people had known for quite a long time.

But yes, a neglected instrument that’s been brought back into playing condition is a delight. I have a couple - a G trombone and an Eb sousaphone. They don’t get out much but, y’know, in the privacy of one’s own home among consenting adults . . .

Last year my flute fixer connected me with a woman whom had a sadly dilapidated flute given to her, maybe a hundred years old or more (no identifying marks but it just looks like older fluted I’ve seen). None of the keys worked or even had pads, it had a couple of cracks. The tuning slide was stuck and I think it was home to spiders. But I liked the old woman so I offered her a hundred bucks and took it to my flute guy for restoration. He did a great job on what turned out to be a good but less than stellar instrument. It plays well with adequate volume and isn’t too hard to play in tune. It’s light, easy on the ears, and rather sweet sounding. It looks like it had been played a lot and I play it a lot. Not a world class instrument for sure but it makes me happy.

I have a fiddle which, according to those who know of such things, say it’s a saxon trade violin from the late 1800s. It belonged to the grandfather of a good friend and had been sitting in the old wooden (coffin?) case for decades; the GF died in 1964 and my friend gave it to me about 6 yrs ago. It was very dusty inside, had a crack in the top plate, and some loose seams and I talked a Florida-local luthier (Royce Burt) into repairing and setting it up. It’s nothing great, but has a good sound and I like that it now has another life, perhaps playing the same tunes it played 100+ yrs ago. Hope its next caretaker will keep its life going.

I did just enough repairs on a battered old fiddle to get it playing again for a friend and she used it for sessions rather than the violin she used for her day job as a teacher.
The interesting thing about it was just how many repairs it already had. It had clearly been in an abusive relationship! Someone loved it enough to keep repairing it, but why so much damage? What was its story?

at a garage sale, for $4, I got an 1890-ies mini-guitar-shaped mandolin (a mandolinetto. it was in two pieces, $2 each). the frets are worn out, the fretboard is worn out, all signs that it was played, a lot. the headstock was broken (bad wood). fixed that (twice, bad wood kept breaking), made a new bridge, strung it up with super-extra-light strings. and a wow! now it is obvious why it was played, a lot. it has good tone, it is super loud, it works at an irish session and at a bluegrass jam, it has very low action, it is easy on the fingers, it stays in tune regardless, it is a great conversation piece when busking (“that’s a funny looking ukulele you are playing!”). it is my main practice mandolin now. (my good mandolin as an old gibson A-4, my main axe is a bruce weber octave mandolin. Vancouver, BC is a flute/whistle desert, but a surprising number of people play 100 year old violins, with good effect!).

I bought an eight key flute on evilbay. Thought is might not be suitable for A=440 hz, but it had a Boehm style foot and I wanted to practice my low tones. The seller was someone who did ´house clearances´ in Herefordshire. I think I paid about $300 USD. It was described as having laid in a back cupboard for decades.
Lovely cocus-wood flute with a half-lined head, high-quality maillechort french-style keys, metal reinforced sockets, plays at 440 hz with a three mm extension. It reeked of cigarette smoke and had at one time been well played. Stamped by a Music Store in Southeast London that went out of business in about 1920. When it came back from the refurbisher it was a lovely player. I like to think it saw service in pubs like The Legacy during the between wars period.

I got my husband’s grandfather’s fiddle in a sorry state and invested a couple hundred in a cleanup -
I daresay it’s as good as my other 4k € instrument. And it’s been in the family since 1917, but probably is quite a bit older (with no label though)

Yeah! Attic scavengers, garage or boot sales, eBay.

With the invention of google, it’s down to luck to find a good deal on anything with a known label or serial number, but it still happens. It’s especially good luck with the seller doesn’t know whether the object is desirable, or doesn’t bother to use the google. Also if your “competition” doesn’t recognize the object due to mr blurry-cam, mislabeling, or unique construction. Instruments in dis-repair screen to 90% of your competion.

I’ve had occasional eBay failures, but also luck with known flute makes:
- A couple of Firth, Ponds 8-keys at a price that warranted the repair. (Tuning on these American flutes make them low-risk bets)
- A Firth Pond boxwood one key needing quite a bit of repair, but what a nice, “casual” flute for quiet playing in D & G keys.
- A Rudall & Rose at a high price. After repair it turned out to be a spectacular player so worth every penny!
- Another R&R of Cocus and Ivory which made it look unusual. The BuyItNow price was $200, and I hit the button before anyone else saw it. Came with a wooden box and piccolo.

Yup.. nothing nicer than bringing a bit of history back to life.

Jon Dodd did some nice work cleaning, re-corking and replacing pads on this: https://flic.kr/s/aHskBaY1f4

It was in a cupboard in a French farmhouse in the Pyrenees and in poor order (had been lying in a dry climate for >50 years). I managed to coax it to play with some kitchen paper to seal joints and sent this video to the owner of the farmhouse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMf1Zb9SPyQ (excuse the playing, I was only in year 2 learning!).

play video

He told me it was his grandmother’s flute. She died the year he was born. We estimated that it was from around 1880s-1890s.

Anyway - after Jon Dodd’s work and a little re-tuning of F# by Hammy Hamilton (feature of this vintage French flute)… it is now being played regularly by a young lady from Naas. I gifted it to her so that it would be played and loved and not a dusty historical idiosyncrasy.

A wonderful old instrument which as far as I know has NOT been brought back to life is an amazing Taylor (or Taylor style) full set of uilleann pipes, with double-bass regulator, and with a single chanter and a double chanter.
The owner wouldn’t consider any offers, and the pipes sat in pieces in a box for many years. I did a quick mouth-blow and the reeds in the double chanter still worked!
He’s passed away and I don’t recall if his heirs have done anything with the pipes. They really need to be restored and put into the hands of a good player.

On a trip to dump garbage at the town solid waste disposal facility one day, I noticed the headstock of a mandolin poking out of a pile of garbage. I picked it up, the strings were still attached, and it pulled up the rest of the neck and body that had broken off at the bottom of the headstock. So I took it home.

It was an old Italian bowl-back mandolin, one of the inexpensive ones sold in the 1910-1920’s here in the USA. Some of the staves in the bowl had loosened up and were showing daylight through the cracks. I glued those back together, but it would require planing the wood and refinishing to smooth out the back from wood expansion, I haven’t done that yet. I glued the headstock back to the neck, that seems to be holding with extra-light gauge strings.

Amazingly, the soundboard had no cracks, otherwise it would be a wall decoration. It had no bridge so I bought a replacement. I’m still in the process of planing that down to get a decent saddle height, so I’m still not sure how playable it is, but it shouldn’t be too bad. I don’t expect it to replace the very nice modern mandolin I use in sessions, but at least it’s not sitting in the town trash heap. A neat little relic of the mandolin craze here in the USA during the early part of the 20th Century.