The old flutes have great charm and character. And they have much to teach us about the flute music written at the times when they were made. Except where otherwise noted, all photographs of flutes are of instruments in the author's collection.

A comprehensive fingering chart for the 19C simple system flute with four to twenty keys. (PDF file available) Facsimile Fingering Charts. Antonio Lorenzoni's fingering chart for the one-key flute, 1779. The earliest charts for the 6-key flute, from The …

Here is a small pile of anonymous instruments from the 1880–1930 period, including three German B-foot instruments (two with ivory heads stamped "nach Meyer"), a one-key French flute, and a six-key flute of possible English origin.

There were many centers of flute making in Germany, and many types of simple system flutes of instruments made over the century. Our survey cannot be complete but is directed in large part by the instruments in the author's collection.

R. S. Rockstro, who knew both the old and new systems intimately, could write in 1889 that "The old flute, with eight keys and upwards, possesses certain facilities in the fingering of the third octave which are not afforded by any flutes on the open-keyed system [e.g. the Boehm flute]..."

The most common 19th century simple system French-style flute has five keys, one for each note outside D major. Here are five-key flutes by, from bottom to top, Tulou (Paris, c.1835), Sax (Brussels, c.1845), Noblet (Paris, c.1860), and Noë (Paris, c.1900).

The fife is, historically, a small, keyless, transverse flute with a narrow, completely cylindrical bore and six finger holes. This page will focus on the traditional American and British fife used in the 18th, 19th, and well into the 20th centuries.

Two guys arguing about the new vs. the old flute: De Lorenzo vs. "Smith" (1904) The following appears in a short biography, by William E. Hullinger, of Leonardo de Lorenzo that appeared in The Flutist of 1922.

The old flute had undoubtedly more of this characteristic mellifluous sound than the modern Böhm. The cause of this peculiar tone-quality is not known with certainty, but it probably arises from the absence of a mouthpiece of any kind.

Eight keys was common, and remained so throughout the century, so that the term "eight-key flute" is not inappropriate when speaking of the 19th century English simple system flute in general. (But it is an English term and should be avoided when speaking of continental flutes.)