The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[Jock Scot]

A great bargain on a wonderful African Blackwood set by Dunbar (St Catherines, Ontario, Canada).

Some small nicks. Those things don't bother me a bit! All of my vintage sets have nicks.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/23448568987...YAAOSw4K9iOT9K

And a Gillanders & MacLeod set in seemingly great condition for a reasonable price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/23447389887...4AAOSwXUxiNiYu

Who knows how high the bidding will go on this R G Lawrie chalice set.

The late, great Alastair Gillies played a set like this, which sounded amazing in his hands of course.

This led many pipers to covet owning such a set, the idea being that chalice-top Lawries had a special magic that standard-profile Lawries lacked. AFIK all Lawries made at that time used the same specs and all are excellent pipes.

I wouldn't be surprised if, due to the Gillies effect, these sold for significantly more than a standard-profile Lawrie of that period would.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28471391935...sAAOSwxutiN2hG

Purely out of interest, at a guess(I won't hold you to it. Promise!)what sort of figures are we thinking about here? $'s or £'s it matters not. Low hundreds? High hundreds? A thousand? Thousands?

[OC Richard]

Purely out of interest, at a guess (I won't hold you to it. Promise!) what sort of figures are we thinking about here? $'s or £'s it matters not. Low hundreds? High hundreds? A thousand? Thousands?

It's so hard to predict the "used bagpipe market" because so much depends on the timing, on what specific instruments specific pipers are looking for at a certain time.

Speaking generally, bagpipes from the 1940s through the 1980s, from known Scottish makers, if mounted in Catalin (the stuff that looked sort of like ivory when new, but as it ages turns to a strange burnt orange) go from anywhere between $500 and $1,000 US.

It's because many pipers have a strong aversion to that look.

The same sets if mounted in real ivory will go for much more, around $2,000 perhaps, though many pipers will avoid ivory pipes due to them being illegal to take across International borders. In the USA it's illegal to buy, sell, or possess any item made of ivory. (There's a de minimis exception for musical instruments.)

If a set has Sterling Silver mounts the price goes up too. Sets with plain silver mounts will go for around $2,000 or more and sets with engraved silver mounts might double that price.

The other factor is the maker. Classic Henderson bagpipes will go for considerably more than similar sets by other makers, for example.

[OC Richard]

Those are general things. But about those chalice-top Lawries on Ebay now, perhaps this set will only go for $700 to $1,000.

But I can guarantee those pipes, if sold at the time that Alastair Gillies was making a splash in the piping world playing an identical set, would fetch perhaps twice that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9yZj2IZIis

[Jock Scot]

OCR.

Thanks for that OCR, very interesting. The prices are about what I thought. I am not ever going to venture into the pipe market so I am not likely to be another "player" in that market. I do keep an eye on the antique furniture/silver and rule 11 market and have a fair idea of current prices for those, but musical instruments are way out of my ken.

[OC Richard]

You're welcome!

The chalice-top Lawries have passed $700.

There have been 43 bids, which is an exceptionally high amount of interest.

Of course you only need two interested parties to drive the price through the roof.

With a dozen hours left we shall see if the bidders have cooled off, or if it will heat up towards the end.

Hard to know but I'll guess it goes for a little over $1,000 which is a bargain for a quality instrument. A comparable new set costs more than that, and probably won't work as well as that vintage Lawrie.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28471391935...ndition=4%7C10

[OC Richard]

Pipes by McLeod Forfar for around $400 no bids.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/18537079292...ndition=4%7C10

Robert "Bert" Gillanders opened his pipemaking shop around 1930 in Dundee.

It became Gillanders & Son (Forfar) in 1959 with the addition of son Robert "Bob" Gillanders.

With the addition of Iain McLeod in 1972 the firm became Gillanders & McLeod.

Bert died in 1977, Bob in 1997 and I see that these pipes are stamped "McLeod Forfar".

I don't know what year "Gillanders" was dropped.

[OC Richard]

An update about the big-mount Lawries I bought a while back.

I suppose it's a matter of mixed "joys and dangers" because when I bought them I knew they had a replacement Bass bottom made to match by McCallum.

The replacement wasn't an identical visual match, but most importantly it used McCallum's standard bore spec which is narrower than Lawrie ever would have used.

As usual the answer was Rick Pettigrew at Dunbar. I played the Lawrie drones with various Bass bottoms I have. The best was the one from my 1940s Starcks, which I sent to Dunbar, along with one of the Lawrie Tenor bottoms so Rick could copy the visuals.

I just got the result, which looks and plays great.

[OC Richard]

Here's one of those things where the unknowledgeable Ebay seller lists the entire pipe as being by the maker's mark stamped on one of the chanters that's in the box with the pipes. Oftentimes the stamped chanter is a Practice Chanter which to us pipers is obviously not part of the pipes.

In this case it's a Pipe Chanter by Sinclair. The seller says the pipes themselves are unmarked but I wonder. Sellers often don't look in the Cord Guides where most modern pipes are stamped.

In any case the narrow catalin at the tops of the drone bells suggest Gillanders (Bob Gillanders/Gillanders & McLeod/McLeod Forfar) while the fat chunky projecting mounts are a tad like Grainger & Campbell. Either way clearly not a Sinclair set.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31396034405...MAAOSwIMJiW1WY

[OC Richard]

This set is being bid on, under $300 still.

It appears to be a quality Scottish-made set. I've asked the seller to peek under the cords at the Cord Guides to see if there's a maker's stamp there.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/29492517486...temCondition=4

[OC Richard]

This obviously Pakistani bagpipe has got 19 bids! Stop the madness.

The first telltale things are the bag-cover and the cords (note the rubber O-rings). But it could be a legit set with the Pakistani dressings, right?

I don't think I've ever come across that; it's extremely unlikely. Because in Pakistan they do make quite nice cords and bag-covers and the ones they sell separately are like that. The wonky sort seen on this Ebay set are the kind that come on the cheapest Pakistani pipes.

So for a legit pipe to have the cheapest sort of Pakistani dressings would mean shifting them from a cheap Pakistani set.

Much more common is the other way round: Pakistani pipes which have been dressed in higher-quality things.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25549524229...ndition=4%7C10