Zogbaum 6-key

A sweet player with a genuinely distinctive voice. The tone has a character all its own, and the nicely cut embouchure gives an easy, ready response. The F# and C# lean a touch flat and benefit from some lipping up, but the flute otherwise plays at A=440 with the tuning slide extended approximately 11mm.

The body is cocuswood of exceptional figure and grain quality. Cocus of this caliber is extraordinarily difficult to source today, which makes surviving 19th-century examples all the more remarkable as playing instruments. Medium-sized tone holes make the flute very approachable for players with smaller hands. The foot joint's original additional keys were removed at some point, leaving a clean and responsive six-key configuration. A carbon fiber band reinforces the right-hand socket.

The flute has been meticulously restored. Head joint cracks have been repaired, and the instrument plays solidly as a result of a thorough overhaul.

About the Maker

Ferdinand Zogbaum had a workshop in Charleston around 1852 and relocated to New York around 1854. When Rufus Fairchild joined the company in 1858 it became Zogbaum & Fairchild, and the workshop flourished until after 1880. Zogbaum advertised the company as both importers and manufacturers. Instruments from the firm are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian, among other institutions, and Zogbaum flutes are consistently found in figured cocuswood with nickel keywork. This example, believed to date from the 1854 to 1880 working period in New York, represents the firm's characteristic construction at its best.