The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[WalesLax]

About the "stories" that come with pipes, I think generally those are bogus. I've seen so many pipes on Ebay said to have been "recovered from a WWI battlefield" that after the Great War the ground must have been so covered with bagpipes that you couldn't walk without stepping on them.

Oh, and pipes "played in the Boar War" (sic)

I 100% get your point that it is difficult to believe, verify, or care about the backstory, but I enjoy hearing/reading them.

I can not find either right now, but my two favorite stories were 1) a set of pipes played in a Bollywood movie, and 2) a set of pipes signed and once played by Roddy Roddy Piper, the wrestler.

A long, long time ago, I was studying US Civil War research, and one of the professors or speaker said shared the fact that they had documented more unique battlefield-used swords in museums or for sale (over some specific time period) than the number of swords that were issued by both sides combined. I can imagine it now - "thank you for volunteering.... listen, we don't have shoes to issue you right now, but why don't you go ahead and take two swords and a set of bagpipes; that should be just as good!"

Rob

[OC Richard]

When you really have a laugh is when there's some elaborate story about the pipes being recovered from the battlefield, or being "bequeathed" to somebody by "the last surviving veteran" and the pipes are entirely modern sheesham-wood Pakistani pipes!

About movie-used props and costumes, I personally would be skeptical, because those claims are usually impossible to verify.

So in the Smithsonian Museum they have "the Indiana Jones hat which was seen in _________ film". Was it?

Because there never was "the hat". On the set in the costumer would have on hand probably at least a half-dozen identical hats, for a big-budget film perhaps a dozen or more. If the hat needs to be weathered, dusty, torn, etc all of the hats on hand would have identical weathering and damage. For a particular shot the costumer would grab a hat and hand it to Harrison Ford, or his stunt double, or a stand-in if he has one. (These might all be in different sizes to fit the various men.) After the film is finished there's no way to know which hats were never used, which hats were used in shots that ended up on the cutting-room floor, and which hats were used in shots that made it to the final edit of the film.

In this particular case fans have gone through the Indiana Jones films shot-by-shot and identified certain specific hats based on some quirk an individual hat possessed. (The same scene is made up of numerous shots and it might be different hats in the different shots, no one can say because they don't keep track of that stuff.)

However in the Bollywood case there might not be budget for "multiples" of props and costumes. I would still want to see a nice clear screen shot of the pipes, to perhaps determine if the purported screen-used pipes look the part.

Anyhow back to Ebay! This seller is calling these pipes "unbranded". They look like they might be older Gibsons to me, when Gibson used nylon for the mounts. Jerry told me that he got a lot of complaints about the appearance of the nylon, which Jerry used because it's very tough stuff. So later he switched to the imitation ivory that the UK makers were using, which looks more like ivory but is quite brittle.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Highland-ba...MAAOSwRUpgEcVX

It's odd how often sellers will have a good number of photos, but all of them taken from exactly the same angle! So the photos are redundant, one would have done. What buyers want are multiple angles so they can attempt to identify the pipes. This is especially true with Gibson drones due to the projecting mounts having a unique profile, but you have to be able to see the drones side-on to tell.

Most sellers just look at the stamp on the chanter, the trouble is that in many (if not most) cases the chanter in a set of pipes is a different maker from the rest of the set. This leads to half the pipes on Ebay being misidentified.

One aspect to this is how often Pakistani pipes happen to have a legitimate UK-made or North American-made pipe chanter in them, the seller then listing the entire set as being made by that UK or NA maker.

Many of the old makers, and some of the new makers, don't stamp their drones. When makers do stamp their drones, the stamp is usually hidden in the "cord guide". Of course an Ebay seller who doesn't know much about pipes has no idea that the maker's stamp will be concealed in this way, so I will message the seller and try to explain how to find the stamps.

Here's the RG Hardie stamp in the cord guide of a vintage Hardie drone. You can see how the cord has to be pulled away from its usual place sitting in the guide, to see the stamp.

[OC Richard]

Here are 2004 Kintails, a big chip in one of the mounts, here in the USA under $800 including shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2004-Kintai...wAAOSwJX5f9Lk5

What concerns me a bit, in addition to the chip in the mount, is that I don't know how Kintails of that period sound and play.

I'm familiar with 1980s Kintails, because my Pipe Major plays a mid-1980s silver & ivory Kintail which has an amazing tone with a powerful bass. His backup set is a Catalin-mounted Kintail also from the mid-1980s which he picked up cheap on Ebay, and which sounds exactly the same as his silver & ivory Kintails.

But I haven't knowingly heard a Kintail from the 2000s.

This next bagpipe listing is a head-scratcher with several red flags, one being the seller has zero feedback, the other that the seller obviously knows nothing about bagpipes because 1) his description has bagpipe parts misspelled and 2) his description doesn't match the bagpipe seen in the photos.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RG-Hardie-N...4AAOSwOCRgHFct

So he says "plain combined" when he means is "plain combed". The combing on bagpipes (combing like combing your hair) is the pattern of tiny grooves, called combing because it's done with a tool that resembles a comb.

Thing is, the bagpipes in the photos aren't plain combed, they're "fully combed and beaded" (a bead being between two areas of combing).

Then he says the pipes have "beaded nickle furnels" when he means "beaded nickel ferrules".

But the bagpipes in the photos have non-beaded or un-beaded ferrules.

Another thing is that he states the bagpipes are African blackwood but from the nice closeup photos (for which I'm grateful) the pipes look like they're made from polypenco/delrin rather than wood.

Speaking of head-scratchers, here's a Pakistani bagpipe where the seller knows it's a Pakistani bagpipe and yet has them priced absurdly high

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Pak...gAAOSwwfdfohHi

Several years ago I got a catalogue from a Pakistani pipemaker, that kind of bagpipe is the least expensive one they make, they called it "cheap quality" and they were $40.

Something to keep in mind when people play hundreds of dollars for a Pakistani bagpipe!

[WalesLax]

First is a vintage Lawrie set "refurbished by Dunbar". For those not aware, the further you go back the more alike Lawries and Hendersons become, both in look and sound. Early Lawries like this one will be fine-playing professional instruments. Looks like Rick Pettigrew at Dunbar Bagpipes removed the original mounts (probably Catalin) and replaced them with the very strong and durable imitation ivory that Dunbar has used for many years.

This set has a minimum, it has already cycled through without reaching it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bagpipes/11...QAAOSwltBgDGR2

I was watching this set that you had pointed out, and saw one of the more frustrating things that happens on eBay from time to time.... the auction ended, reserve was met, the seller decided it wasn't enough, so they re-listed the item.

I simply don't get how people are able to get away with that.

Rob

[OC Richard]

Here's another Kintail from the 2000's, I have no experience with Kintails of that period.

They're gorgeous pipes, looking like a full-silver set, but nickel. AFAIK these "engraved nickel" Kintails weren't actually engraved, but had the design rolled and/or stamped onto the mounts. Kintail did a large number of these sets both in nickel and brass. A Kintail with "engraved" brass mounts is a beautiful thing to see, when the brass is polished and the pipes look like gleaming gold.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kintail-200...AAAOSw7C1gICwJ

This closes in a couple hours, no bids. I think the price is terrific for a set like this, unless Kintails from the 2000s are known/said to be subpar. I don't know.

I would worry about how heavy these pipes are. The vintage full-silver sets (1880s-1930s) that I've seen and held have had projecting mounts fabricated out of sheet silver, hollow, so that these sets aren't much heavier than any other set.

But Naill makes their full-silver sets with heavy cast-silver projecting mounts, and there's no way I would want one of those sets on my shoulder.

I don't know how these Kintail projecting mounts were made.

[OC Richard]

Here's a great pickup for somebody: 1970s Grainger & Campbells for $525 Buy It Now.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1970s-Grain...wAAOSw~xRgKZOQ

My old Pipe Major played G&Cs from around that period, silver & ivory, which had a wonderful tone.

Poly Dunbars for a $400-odd Buy It Now, great-sounding backup pipes/parade pipes for somebody.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dunbar-P1-P...kAAOSwZylgK0NO

Here, near the beach in Southern California, every guitarist has their "beach guitar". A beach guitar is a good-sounding good-playing guitar that's seen better days, perhaps the finish is trashed, and you don't care if it gets bashed a bit. It's the guitar you take to the beach, when everybody sits around the fire and sings Beatles songs.

Likewise pipers have "beach pipes" which is the equivalent of "parade pipes", pipes that sound good but can take a beating. Poly Dunbars are perfect beach pipes.

In any case, here are some nice Naills with an incredibly low current bid, but it's one of those "reserve not met" things that I find annoying, because the seller has a price in mind but doesn't share what it is. The seller also doesn't have much history.

There's a loose mount and they've put electrical tape around the mouthpiece. Neither of these things bother me- it's easy to put mounts on tight, and I'm going to use my own blowpipe anyhow.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DN2-Bagpipe...AAAOSwu7RgK0rz

[OC Richard]

These came up this morning and I did a Buy It Now.

They're Kintails stamped 1981. My Pipe Major plays silver & ivory Kintails from the mid-1980s and they're amazing pipes.



I love that they have the bling, but with imitation ivory, so are fully legal.

[Grump]

Nice pipes. The tarnish on the slides suggest silver? or are they aged nickel? What were they using for drones and did they come with a chanter?

[OC Richard]

Nice pipes. The tarnish on the slides suggest silver? or are they aged nickel? What were they using for drones and did they come with a chanter?

The mounts are EPNS which is "electro-plated Nickel Silver".

In plain English the mounts are solid Nickel Silver/German Silver/Cupro-Nickel (which was the most common metal for Highland pipes, buckles, cantles, dirk mounts, etc from c1840 through c1940) then Silver plated.

It was common for pipes in the old days, makers like R G Lawrie offered bagpipes in plain or engraved German Silver, silver plate, and Sterling Silver. Here's a c1905 R G Lawrie set in Ebony, Ivory, and engraved German Silver. It looks identical to silver & ivory Lawries of that period save for the lack of hallmarks on the mounts.



Kintail pipes were African Blackwood.

Unlike most makers, Kintail not only stamped their name but also the date on their pipes. Multiple Kintails I've heard from the 1980s have been extremely nice in tone, and I expect this set to be like that. The bass drone in particular should be rich and powerful.

Here's a silver & ivory set of Kintails from 1984, a superb-sounding set played by my Pipe Major



The chanter coming with the Ebay set looks rather more modern than the pipes themselves. We shall see!

As a bonus there's a polypenco Practice Chanter.

About current Ebay offerings, the bidding is going up on this Gillanders set, which started very low. Back in the 1980s a band-mate played silver & ivory Gillanders which were amazing in tone.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-McL...p2056016.l4276

[Grump]

Thanks for the info it's all very interesting. Im sure there are a few of us who cant wait to hear the rest of the story. Wonder what they are like to blow, always a consideration for aging pipers.