Romilly's flute

[icegunnsa]

Hey there!

I have a flute that was given to me by my grandfather, I discovered that they don't make them anymore and would like to date it.

It's a Romilly GRADUATE flute made for Rudall-Carte and co ltd in London.
it's serial number is 338818. On the case it says Rudall-Carte, 8-10 Denman st. London w1.

 

[thirdcreed]

Ok, I've done some google research and I've found three different dates for the buying out of rudall-carte by B&H. 1941, 1950, and 1955. No matter which of these is correct Boosey and Hawkes continued to make flutes under that name until much later. Your case list Denman st. which is a B&H address ( I found it in an advertisement for Rudall-Carte dated 1960). In other words, B&H sold your Romilly under it's subsidiary company Rudall-Carte and this Is the serial number guide. It puts your serial number at 1970. So...1970, although you might check my slap-shod research

 

[John Watt]

That's a nice piece of research on that flute.
I just looked because "Romilly's Flute" sounds like it would be a good movie.
Now that I've seen the research, I'm thinking it could be like the Red Violin,
only instead of a history of violinists who owned the same violin,
it could be about silversmiths making flutes, the family dramas surrounding beating metal,
the hot forges and anvils of smithing, to the soft pad installations.
I can almost smell the slugs of leather being stamped out of fresh hides.
Ah! This makes me want to play violin, so I can kill cats and gut my own strings.
Any chance Romilly and Paganini were friends? Boosey and Hawkes goes back that far, I think.

 

[jackeroo]

Hi, the flute you refer to is the "Romilly" model, manufactured by Rudall Carte and company almost certainly in the 1970's. This was a student model flute but decent quality, some, if not all, had sterling silver lip plates to the head joint. Rudall Carte joined forces with Boosey and Hawkes and there is a B&h website that lists model numbers, you may be able to date it by looking there.

cheers! Jackeroo.