Edward Baack Boxwood & Ivory 1-Key, D

This Edward Baack flute is in remarkable condition for its age and plays beautifully at A=440. The tone is warm, woodsy, and focused, with a clean, responsive embouchure that has held up wonderfully over the decades. As is common on flutes of this era, the F sharp favors the vented E flat key for proper intonation.

The boxwood has darkened to a lovely deep patina with age and remains notably straight, which is uncommon for a boxwood flute of this vintage. It carries a single brass E flat key. The ivory mounts are a particular highlight: the rings feature an elegant triple-lobed design, the crown is gracefully turned, and all of the ivory is perfectly intact with no cracks, which is exceedingly rare to find on an antique flute. The body shows no cracks save for one very subtle hairline beneath the E flat key, largely obscured by the key itself and visible only on close inspection. It has been sealed and is stable. This is among the finest-condition antique boxwood flutes to surface at the shop in some time.

Recently overhauled by Matthew Slauson.

About the Maker

Edward Baack was a 19th-century New York maker and dealer of wind instruments, born Heinrich Eduard Baack in Germany around 1809. He immigrated to New York City about 1832, where he worked as an importer and dealer in musical instruments, marking his own instruments "E. Baack." He exhibited at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1853, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art dates his working output to roughly 1839 through 1872.