The color itself will not make any difference, but if you're buying a colored flute, the exceptionally low quality and poor design will. Most of these colored flutes a junk imports that have a terrible scale, poor head design, low quality mechanism, and are exceptionally difficult to repair. If you're looking into a flute, be sure to buy from an established maker with a good reputation for quality and to playtest whatever you're thinking of buying BEFORE money changes hands.

If a person who knew what they were doing, colored a good quality flute it may not make much of a difference towards spoiling it's tone quality BUT the ones that you are seeing these days for sale that are colored are generally of bad quality. We make fun of them all the time here at this forum

That being said, I would like to own a gold or platinum colored Powell, Nagahara, Brannen or some such professional level flute.

Take it from the victim. I have a purple flute, and a standard Gemeinhardt. Purple flute? Some unheard-of company. The flute...it's flashy and all, but I use the Gemeinhardt so much more. It's so hard to get any tone out of the purple one at all. I end up having to breathe every measure because I'm pushing out all my air to hit a piano dynamic. It's so hard to use the colored flutes! If you're going to buy a colored instrument make sure it's from a good company. Or you can always get it painted at some music stores.

There are many perfectly good cheap Chinese flutes around - I have two both of which are much better than the 35 year old Boosey and Hawkes flute I learnt on and one sounds distinctly better than a Yamaha 211. The best way to make sure you are buying a good one is to try it first - this also applies to any other flute. Its common for quality branded flutes to need adjustments before they are playable. Buying any flute off ebay is a bit of a gamble - and if its second hand you can be sure it will need some work. Most good music stores now carry a range of cheaper flutes - although they would obviously prefer to sell you a more expensive one so its essential you play them not just listen to them! Good stores will also offer a warranty on all their flutes and have the skills to repair any flute. Probably the most important factor is that second hand Chinese flutes have a low resale value whereas the resale price for well known branded flutes is a much higher proportion of the purchase price.

Buying any flute off ebay is a bit of a gamble - and if its second hand you can be sure it will need some work.

That's not necessarily true. If you find a second hand flute that has recently been overhauled by a good tech, it probably won't need work. But as you mentioned, many new flutes do need setup. It's not the number of owners an instrument has had that determines whether repair/maintainence is necessary, it's the care it has been given in the past.

Most good music stores now carry a range of cheaper flutes

I can't think of a single reputable music store that I've been into that carried junkers like most of these colored flutes, but the cheaper makes from reputable manufacturers (like Preludes) may be found in them.

Good stores will also offer a warranty on all their flutes and have the skills to repair any flute.

It's not really a matter of skill. Most decently qualified techs would have the skills necessary to get these junker flutes to play, but eceonomically it rarely makes sense. You could well end up paying more for the repairs than the flute, as the post Micron linked to indicates. That link also shares another useful point....Even if you manage to get them repaired, they may not even be playable in real life situations.

Probably the most important factor is that second hand Chinese flutes have a low resale value whereas the resale price for well known branded flutes is a much higher proportion of the purchase price.

One major reason for a low resale value on these junkers (close to nothing) is the exceedingly low quality. When you buy a name brand flute, you're not just paying for a name on the barrel, but for the quality associated with that name, and a guarantee of accountability should anything be wrong with the instrument. I would not suggest that anyone buy a cheap Chinese flute at this point. They are getting better, and in the years to come, they may offer a real alternative to the makes that are established today, but at this point, there are still too many issues with too many of them. Stick to a name brand instrument.

I saw one of my juniors that i was a Girl Scout camp aide yesterday (my time) at a band festival.

She had a purple-colored flute, with gold-color keys, etc.

I went, "oh my..."

Some kids need the, what can i call it, the excitement i suppose of getting out a purple/pink/blue flute and playing it, something out of the ordinary, and something their friends will envy (??!!) I have a student playing a purple and gold one, which she has done for 2 years now, it's ok (just) but now she is more excited about playing the flute instead of the gimmick and will be looking for something silver coloured by yamaha sometime soon :-)

Angie, I have to wonder though if that flute has been holding your student back at all. The way those colored flutes are built it is bound to have poor padding and leaks all over, espeically after two years of playing it. When she does switch to a well built flute, I bet she is going to say "wow!" They are pretty, but I would only use one for decor.

<Added>

I want this one, I just love the blue and silver!
http://cgi.ebay.com/STERLING-Blue-and-Silver-Open-Hole-Flute-NEWEST-RANGE_W0QQitemZ110103437094QQcategoryZ10183QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

yes ..... i think you're right and i wouldn't have advised the purchase but the kid came to me with it in the first place, and at the time she thought it was precious and i'm not the sort of person to "bust her bubble" .... i can't tell though kara, if she was more encouraged to at least get her flute out of the box because it was so pretty and practice or whether it was my teaching that encouraged her !!!!! probably a bit of both :-)

Awh... that is cute! I don't think that I would have the heart to tell her either. Well, if she likes it and it is playing okay for her and she doesn't want to quite, then I guess that is what is important too. I am sure the most part of is, is that she has a wonderful teacher.

PS. I have been busy and you will be very happy to know that I have been practicing those exercises. Thank you for the direction, I needed that. We got the pool up yesterday too. yay! xxxxx

Just a thought for kicks and giggles...

I know that the flute color doesn't have an effect on the quality or tone but. If you went outside in the heat with a black flute, wouldn't the color draw in more heat then a silver one? I would assume it would be playing sharper than the regular silver/nickle colored flutes. Or would the metal just reflect the heat?

There's no way to know how much heat might actually get to the flute. If the coloring is a mirror finish, it's probably going to absorb less heat than if it were a matte finish. We also don't know how well the colored layer (which is often times just a film) would conduct the heat into the flute itself. In any case, I've played my flutes over a large range of temperatures, and I don't believe that temperature has much to do with tuning. It's not going to move the toneholes, and most of the fine pitch adjustments come from the player. The most it would do is slightly expand the tubing (assuming it's hot), but then the tubing should expand in two directions....Out on the outside, and in on the inside, which to me (and I haven't done any scientific studies or anything), would seem to mean a small change in bore size at the very most.

The speed of sound is dependent on air temperature and this (rather than expansion) is why pitch is dependent on temperature. Some people believe that humidity also affects the speed on sound because it changes the density but I have not seen this quantified.

Not sure about flutes but if an auto is painted black vs white and the windows are closed, the inside temp on a hot sunny summer day can be anywhere from 30 -60 degrees F. warmer. This is why in the Us S.W. states like Arizona there are many white cars around. Two students of mine from the same family have had their flute cases deformed because they left their flute in the family's dark blue mini-van during some sports practice on two different occasions. You'd a thought that they would ahave got the idea at some point after the first one. I live in Ohio.

I guess they should start painting piccolos in white for marching bands...