Hi, leeneia. The first curiousity about this set was that the chanter was made a couple of years ago by Brian Howard; the bag and bellows were made by the late Alphonsus Kennedy in Cork in 1970. That in itself would make the instrument almost unique. Brian Howard was familiar with it in every detail - he first got into pipemaking by copying Finbar Fury's Kennedy set, and remained keenly interested in Kennedy stuff thereafter.

The seller didn't realise, or didn't say, that the chanter was fitted with a popping valve. But Brian Howard realised, and knows the whereabouts of almost every popping valve he's made. And we had discussed what to do about a crack in the inlet valve, a detail mentioned by the seller. (The valve block is actually ivory, not bone as the description says.) Lastly - and, er, this is a detail I'm reluctant to mention - there were tiny indentations on the blowpipe, where I had tried to work it free from its stock, lost my temper and injudiciously applied a mole wrench. (Yes, a mole wrench!)

Little Robyn, you were probably a bit too harsh on the seller. My guess is that Giok has got it right. Certainly eBay could have given Mr Doyle some advice about the law, especially when he added that extra info to his listing.

Greetings Fibs! I've lost Jackie's contact details. Maybe you'd let him know the outcome. He was extremely generous/helpful at the time, and the replacement bag he supplied is giving great service. (I had the devil of a job getting him to charge me a proper price for it!)