a tale of two bagpipes

[416 Rigby]

I have a pal who plays a set of 1920's Robertson's, and the drones sound spectacular, rich and full of bass. Through recent genealogy research, it turns out he's related to the man who made his pipes. How cool is that?!

[Pyper]

I picked the first as Pakistani based on the mounts, which are that pot metal they use. The second I could tell were quality based on the engraving, but I had no idea they were Robertson. Supposedly my Soutar pipes are somewhat like Robertson.

At Grandfather Mountain last week two different pipers played my plastic McCallum pipes. I was really impressed by how good they sound.

[OC Richard]

Yes plastic (delrin/polypenco) pipes sound pretty much the same as wood pipes by the same maker.

I had Dunbar pipes in blackwood and poly and the tone of the bass drones was identical. The poly tenors were a tad brighter than the blackwood tenors but when I measured them I found that the ID specs were slightly different wood v plastic, which I account for the difference in tone.

AFAIK no other maker used the odd huge fat ivory mounts that Robertson used- they're one of the few makes that are easy to ID.

[KD Burke]

I never did try to get the bass going in the set I examined. I had been asked to determine the feasibility of getting them playing for a budget-minded student. When realized that the two tenors would likely never tune together, I told him that the expense of acquiring and tying in a new bag would not be justified and recommended he look into finding a set of used Dunbar or McCallum polypenco pipes.

[OC Richard]

Yes that's the wisest advice to give. Why throw good money after bad, and end up with a set which will never be satisfactory?

There was a kid here who was convinced he had found that elusive "diamond in the rough."

It was a terrible Pakistani set. He spent much time and money putting on a new bag, trying various sorts of reeds, buying a new chanter, and so forth. In the end it was still a terrible Pakistani set.

A woman who saw his process told me "He thinks it's a diamond in the rough. It's just plain rough."

A piper friend had it happen where somebody brought him their terrible Pakistani set, to try to get it to work.

My friend tried everything with the bass, and nothing. So he took the bass apart and examined each section and noticed he couldn't see any light coming through the bass upper section. "Something's jammed up in there" he thought. After poking long sharp pointy things in each end, he came to the realization that it wasn't bored all the way through! They had run a drill partway in from each end, but never the twain did meet.

[OC Richard]

Here's something that just came up on Ebay.

What do you all make of it? There are two things which are immediate 'red flags' for us Ebay pipe-spotters.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-P-He.../201630703743?