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wednesday wrote

i have two fairly old musical instruments.

the older of the two is a German factory fiddle made at some point during the 19th century (the mass-produced instruments from this time period are very difficult to date accurately). this is quite a nice example of the development of assembly lines in early capitalist industry: while fiddles were traditionally made largely by a single person (either a workshop owner or one of their apprentices), these factories worked on a division of labour approach where one person would be responsible for a single part of the instrument, and the parts would be assembled into a complete instrument at the end.

i also have a Rudall Carte flute from around 1920 (this one is much easier to date using its serial number). this is an "1867 system" flute, a modified version of the Boehm system used for classical flutes which was designed to be more similar to the older simple-system flute. Rudall Carte (formerly known as Rudall Rose) was also an early pioneer of the assembly-line method of instrument manufacturing in London. this instrument is made of cocuswood ("Jamaican ebony"), a hardwood similar to African blackwood which was widely used for instruments and furniture, nearly to the point of extinction; although it survived (barely), it's almost impossible to obtain in any quantity today.

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