SOLD – We’ve had a few Robertson pipes on the site recently. This set appears to date from the 1930s, perhaps the early part of that decade. The mushroom mounts are more subdued and as close to a ‘standard’ look as Robertson ever got. The ferrules are long with a small bead, and the double scribe lines have migrated from the middle of the ferrule in the 1920s to the bottom in the 1930s.

The set came to me with some minor hairline cracks under ferrules. These were fixed and will cause no more trouble. The bass mid-joint came with a brass sleeve in the tuning chamber, likely to counter a small crack which has now been addressed with invisible whipping. The set has been stripped and refinished. It comes with what is most likely the original chanter, though a 100-year-old chanter is more a curiosity than something you would play.

These pipes played beautifully with my reeds and chanter in typical Robertson fashion — full, rich and steady.

James Robertson made pipes in Edinburgh as early as 1908. He died in 1948 but the high tonal and manufacturing standard he set was maintained until the company ceased operations in 1965.