Crabb Layout.

[Robin Harrison]

I was watching this video today.

Click on the video link on the Crabb anglo.

http://www.buttonbox.com/concertinas-in-stock.html#anglo

 

It appears that the layout is Wheatstone.

My intuition would have lead me to believe it would be Jeffries given their association.

Any comment on this ?

 

BTW...do you know what tune it is?

[Stephen Chambers]

From my observation of Crabb Anglos it would seem to have been Harry Crabb who changed to the Lachenal/Wheatstone layout in the 1930s, probably following the closure of Lachenal's in 1933 when (former Lachenal partner) Mr. Saunders came to work with him, bringing orders for cheap Anglos in the mahogany-ended Lachenal style, and with Lachenal fingering.

 

Earlier Crabb Anglos seem to have had very variable fingerings that I (and other tuners?) generally tend to convert to Jeffries layout.

 

But you have to understand that not all Jeffries instruments had exactly the same fingering when they were made (and there are several original layouts with them that I would consider "normal") and that makers would build Anglos with whatever layout the customer wanted - whilst tuners change them to suit the customer's wishes too - so I've tuned Jeffries concertinas to Lachenal/Wheatstone layout, and vice versa...

 

For that matter, there was a stock model of Lachenal that had 38-key Jeffries fingering!

Edited February 24, 2016 by Stephen Chambers