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I have a local guy selling the following:

Signet Selmer Flute coin silver w/ case all 3 pieces stamped 27902 could use a tune up.

There is a pic in the ad showing the flute and it is stamped right on it "coin silver". I am assuming that this means it is solid 90% silver. Am I wrong? I don't know what the thing weighs, but it must be over a pound I would imagine. Do any of you guys have experience with silver instruments? What should I look out for?

When I was younger I wanted one, but could not afford it.
I'd still buy one less than retail.

I was just looking at Selmer saxophones online with my son last night. I saw one that said "silver" and he told me it means plated in silver. Not so sure how much actual Ag it will contain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_co ... _materials

Sounds like if it says "coin silver" then it probably is all 90%. Based on buying another wind instrument locally (wooden clarinet) I would say check to make sure all the sections are from the same maker. In my case the bell section was from a different maker, but it was still all wood and the sound was fine for the price. In your case though it could make a big difference in both resale value and metal value.
Edit:I re-read your post and all the pieces were marked so I guess that's not an issue here.

A few people think that silver instruments sound better because the metal rings. Majority opinion is that the material does not matter for wind instruments.

Changing the air column (openning various holes) changes the resonance of the air column, without changing the resonance of the pipe (flute), so if the metal did resonate, it would produce a high pitch drone. No such resonance because the fingers dampen the vibrations.

Not very oganized. Need more coffee. Coffeeeeeee.

Some have pointed out that anyone who goes to the trouble and expense of making a musical instrument out of silver is not going to do a sloppy job of it. They say silver instruments sound better than average because of the care taken, not the material.

Well, there is a swank factor.

That's probably true about the fingers dampening the material's resonance quite a bit, but an object with a certain resonant frequency will also reinforce tones that are related harmonically (i.e. ratios that approximate fractions of whole numbers). Not sure how significant that is for flutes because of that dampening effect but I always thought it would be interesting to hear a banjo with a silver tone ring.

psi wrote:a banjo with a silver tone ring.

I've heard silver strings bragged up. I don't know enough to think anything.