It’s got some little nicks that show they’ve been played, but I’ve seen bagpipes that are five years old that look worse than this.

That is really amazing.

So we’ve got the ivory ring cap here, the ivory bushing, and then what you see are these really cool little details—like the little double pinstripe here, the double pinstripe here, and then just below the drone cords here, a little double pinstripe, double pinstripe, double pinstripe.

So I’m going to send some photos of these to a couple people that are experts on old bagpipes and get their input. But to me, these can be a tell—that just below the projecting mount, there’s this, above all the beading and combing. The beads are these little round shiny bits, and then the combing are these little lines. But then there’s two little pinstripes there.

That is amazing.  Holy cow. Okay, so this would be a tenor top.  There we go.  Gosh, do I have any drone reeds here in arm’s reach? Can I replace something? Oh—here’s a tenor. Here’s a, uh, an Ezeedrone. Let’s see how this sounds.

Wow. That’s amazing.  That’s a perfect tenor sound—a louder, rougher first tone kicks into that second tone and it focuses.  That’s so great.  Oh, I can almost feel it thunk and go into that second tone. Oh my gosh, that’s so amazing. So excited.  Okay, let’s keep going here. Oh—we got a bass top here.

There it is.  Those are not chips. Those are just a little bit of discoloration there. I wonder what we can do to clean those up. Again, the quality is evident in the manufacturing. All this could be 30 years later.  And also, these pipes hardly look like they’ve been played. This is fantastic. Sometimes you’ll see on older pipes—especially on the bottom of the bass drone, because this is where it goes on your shoulder—this is all worn out or chipped, or some of these combs are broken. Do not see that at all on here.

So this looks like the middle section of the bass drone.  I’m going as fast as I can here. Just amazing.  Wow.  I love the bass drone middle section because it’s the only section that has this function. You know, we’ve got tops and bottoms, and the bass has the middle section.  That is great.  So again, we got some little—there we go.  Boy, that is amazing. I’m going to grab a drone reed.  There we go. Got a drone reed here.

Let’s see how this bass drone sounds.  So, this is the Ezeedrone with the increased absorption bass. This is my favorite bass reed.  Wow.  See, one of the things that you want with a good set of pipes is that when you slide a section on a hemped pin, it’s the same tightness all the way. On some pipes that are defective or were made poorly, the walls on the inside are not straight—so it’ll be tight and then it’ll be loose, or it’ll be loose and then it’ll be tight.

This feels really, really good. That’s amazing. I’m going to open up this reed a little bit.  That’s amazing. That’s exactly what we want from that Henderson bass. It’s kind of rough and growly, and then when it kicks into that second tone, it really kicks in—and I can just feel it vibrating in my hands.  That’s it. That’s amazing.

Okay, I know I keep saying “amazing.” I don’t have any other words, but these pipes look fantastic.  And just on the initial mouth blow that we did—they sound exactly how you want them to sound. Steady and smooth and pure on those tenors, and that really nice resonant bass drone sound—that sounds very steady.

Okay, what do we have here?  A blowpipe. This is amazing.  This blowpipe doesn’t have a mouthpiece, but that’s fine—that’s replaceable. It’s quite narrow. So, it’s really narrow… can barely get a pencil in there. These days, the blowpipes have a much wider bore, which makes it easier to blow through. The narrower bore protects the blowpipe from cracking, but it’s a little more restrictive.

What’s amazing is that this is the original blowpipe—and there are no cracks. It almost looks like it hasn’t been played. Amazing.

Okay, let’s keep going. Oh—there’s something in here. Looks like… all right, so that’s a… looks like a modern mouthpiece. Plastic mouthpiece. We’ll be replacing that.  Okay, what else have  we got here?  This looks like another… another tenor drone top, right?  Again—looking perfect. Just amazing.  And it looks like the other tenor drone bottom section.  Where would we be without bubble wrap?  Another fantastic, beautiful-looking tenor.  Have a listen, shall we?

Wow. Again—really, really good. That’s the perfect tenor drone right there. I changed blowing pressure and there is zero change in the pitch of that. And you can really hear that ring—it’s like a high harmonic there. Woo! Fantastic.  Well, there’s more to go here.  So, this is truly sticks only. When you order a set of bagpipes—if you order sticks only—what you get is the three drones, like we have here, and then the five stocks: Blowpipe stock, Chanter stock, Two tenor drone stocks, Bass drone stock, Blowpipe stock—fantastic. You can see the change in the quality of the wood there—or not the quality of the wood, but sort of the finish towards the bottom, because this has been inside a bag, probably a leather bag, getting a lot of moisture on there. So that’s our blowpipe stock.

And then we’ve got—that’s the shortest one. The next one, slightly longer, is the chanter stock. Interesting. So, chanter stock has a bit of a groove there. I think they sometimes do that—it’s part of the bag tying-in process. Have a little bit of a groove, I guess, for the leather on the sheepskin bag.

Very, very nice. A little bit of wear on there. And it’s just keeping that consistent with this bead and then this little double pinstripe pattern.

Next, we’ve got the two tenor drone stocks.  Yep, that one looks good. Got some discoloration on this ivory here. I’m going to research about how to clean this—I don’t want to at all do anything to damage these pipes or the finish, but maybe we can clean them with something that’s just safe. Get to some of the gunk. Okay, here we have another tenor stock. Yep—two tenor stocks, identical.

It’s really amazing how light that wood is. It’s like… this cocus wood. And from what I’ve read about the history of making bagpipes, there was a time before African blackwood—and that was a very hard wood. I have to learn more about the history of it, but I think in the 1910s maybe they switched over to African blackwood.

Wow. And there’s the bass stock. Beautiful. So we got all five stocks. All right—we got our two tenors. Beautiful. Put those down before I drop something. We got our bass drone.  This might be…Well, I’m going to get these things set up. There’s going to be a part two to this video. But this might be the most amazing set of pipes, historically, that I have ever played.

I’ve played some really nice new pipes. I’ve never had in my possession and been able to play and really get to know and investigate the sound up close of one of these classic old sets of pipes.

So—that’s it. I got my blowpipe—Oh wait, there’s one more thing here. No way. Is this the chanter? This—I think this is a pipe chanter. This is amazing. So this is a complete set, which is extremely rare, because usually these old sets of pipes that have been played continuously—for example, there are some famous pipers today that play old, old sets of pipes—but almost never do they still have the original chanter. So this—if this is the original chanter—we are in for a treat.

Wow. Look at that. There it is. Oh. Amazing. “P. Henderson, Glasgow”—right there. That is really—“P. Henderson, Glasgow” right at the top. And you see this bell shape—this is really different than the chanters that we have today. The holes are nice and small, nice and close together. And it’s really thick. It’s so thick at the bottom—I wonder how thick the wood is. And then it also has this giant ivory sole that we don’t see too often anymore.

But that’s it. This is really remarkable, because you can see that this chanter has been played. You can see the little bit of wear where the piper’s fingers have gone. But really, I’ve seen some chanters that are maybe 20 years old—obviously from the shape and the ivory, you know it’s really, really old—but the amount of wear on it is hardly any.

This is amazing. This is like finding a really, really old car that’s in almost new condition.  So, there he is—Neil Mclean from 1906. We have your pipes here, my man. This is amazing. So we’re going to stay tuned. I’m going to get these things oiled up—well, there’s a couple different steps here for the process. But one is to get them oiled up and cleaned up, and then set up and played.

I’m going to get them—I’m going to get them set up, the drones. And then let’s see what the chanter sounds like as well. Some of these old chanters have a really interesting, different sound than what we’re used to today.  But I’m really, really mostly interested in the drone sound.

And then I’m going to take some more pictures, I’m going to email them to a couple of friends who know a lot more about old pipes than I do. And we’ll find out: Are these the real deal? Were these really made by the man himself, Peter Henderson? And can we find out—from the ivory, or from the wood, or from some of these little clues like this double pinstripe pattern below the cord holders, or maybe from the shape of the bell of the chanter or of the sole—can we pinpoint the exact date?  So this is a mystery. This is a really fun mystery.

Stay tuned. Thanks for watching.  Remember—if you want to find out the true identity of these bagpipes, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Hit the bell to be notified when I post a new video. This is going to be really fun.  Join me and stay tuned for Part Two of the Amazing Peter Henderson Bagpipes.

See you next time.

Mahalo.