This is a bagpipe that came out of an antique store in Edmonton Alberta. The person who purchased it contacted me and eventually the bagpipe was sent to my good friend Andreas Hartmann-Virnich in France.
“Yesterday I finally received the old bagpipes from Edmonton. These pipes are very interesting, fairly early (ca. 1830-1850 I suppose) and quite beautiful when stripped, since they are very thickly coated with a varnish which is excessively difficult to remove. It took me hours, literally, to rid the combing and beading of most of it from three parts. This revealed that the stocks are made from black oak, most probably original to the set. Before ca. 1860 horn-mounted stocks in lightweight wood for sticks mounted with bone/ivory are not unusual. The combing and beading matches a set of cocuswood and laburnum horn-mounted stocks that came with a set of Alexander Glen bagpipes I once had. These drones (Edmonton bagpipe) are ebony, and mounted with marine ivory I believe. The sound is very mellow, very silky and warm, beautiful for piobaireachd. Your spare small bone mount will be a plausible and welcome replacement for the blowpipe or for the missing tenor bottom mount, though the profile is a bit different.
There are two replacements, not counting the missing blowpipe stock and their mounts which have nothing in common with this set. One lower tenor joint was remade for this set and mounted with the remaining original button mount, but with wrong combing and beading. The remade bass middle joint has matching combing and beading and is mounted with the original mounts too, but the wood is wrong. Both replacements are made from reddish blackwood and will look awful when stripped. So I had to buy Gaboon ebony and bog-oak for the replacement parts.
Andreas”
