Any ideas?

Depends what wood you want!

My ebony Rottenburgh was £250 second hand from the EMS, nearly £500 brand new.

Hmmm, I have just bought one for just over 90 pounds, though I am not sure what kind of wood it is yet. It's second hand, needless to say. Hopefully it'll be a bargain (I'll let you know, when it arrives!)...

Have a look at The Early Music Shop website. I'm no expert but the most recommended seem to be ebony, olivewood, rosewood, and boxwood.

Here's the prices of them from EMS brand new

- 239 alto in maple £159.81 £ 187.78
- 239B alto in pearwood £ 184.07 £ 216.28
- 339 alto in boxwood £ 239.01 £ 280.83
- 439 alto in palisander £ 319.63 £ 375.56
- 539 alto in ebony £ 398.11 £ 467.78
- 739 alto in olivewood £ 424.51 £ 498.80
- 939 alto in rosewood £ 424.51 £ 498.80

The second price being the price you have to pay which includes VAT



Ebony My Schubert recording includes my Moeck in the middle of it

Aha, it's a 239, so I am guessing it's maple! Still quite a bit of a saving there. Looking forward to its arrival. Thanks guys!

My maple one cost me £75...but about 20 years ago. Since then I've had about £60 worth of work done on it - getting the thumbhole bushed plus persuading top F to speak, so you have indeed done well, even measured against my Rottenburg - and I'm still quite happy with it, though the boxwood Denner copy comes out for "best"! Have fun playing it.

How do you do that?

Mine came with ivory rings and thumbushing

It's the funny ring inside the instrument, about halfway up the head joint - none of my other recorders has one, but one appeared after I'd had it in for thumb-bushing, and I think Moeck or the EMS must have put it in to make top F work. I found information about this here http://www.recorderhomepage.net/finger.html - I never know if these links work, sorry!, a long way down the page in the bit about top F. There is a lot of other useful stuff in there about all the other fingerings. Still nothing bar bell-stopping for top F# which works on my recorders....

Try 1-34-67

Thanks - I had...

The instrument arrived today. I like it, although the previous owner is clearly from a smoking household

How can you tell?

Because it stinks of fags? *duh*

Hee hee ..... I have a rottenburgh rosewood soprano that I got free - my father in law gave it to me when he retired and closed his music shop - it was left over stock!!!

Jane

Lucky! I prefer ebony