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Frontalini Concertinas - Who Made Them And When?


Daniel Hersh

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Made in Italy by the Frontalini company (strangely enough), who also make accordions and melodeons.

http://www.frontalini.com/History/History.html

Still around today, but don't know if they still make concertinas. Certainly all the examples I have seen would appear to predate Bastari.

I knew about Frontalini accordions - but did they make their own concertinas or contract them out? (I realize that it's possible that no one knows.) Did the ones you've seen have metal or wooden actions? And what type of reeds?

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I knew about Frontalini accordions - but did they make their own concertinas or contract them out? (I realize that it's possible that no one knows.) Did the ones you've seen have metal or wooden actions? And what type of reeds?

 

 

I have certainly had through my workshop both a grey and a red celluloid versions, and at least one wood finished one. I've seen others, but not at sufficiently close quarters to wield the screwdriver. Can't recall any metal ends.

 

All were 20 button, had steel reeds in individual accordion-style alum plates. Not high quality, but not bad. Reedplates wax-mounted on glued-in A frames.

 

The actions were metal, buttons around 3/8" dia, being larger than Bastari though not as large as the EGerman boxes, and didn't seem inclined to disappear inside! My impression is that they were built in the 1950s and/or 1960s from what some of their owners told me and from their condition, e.g. the state of the leather valves,.

 

Certain similarities to Chinese-made concertinas, but I assume Italian-made and probably predating the Chinese production. Perhaps the later Chinese concertinas were copies of the Frontalini????

Edited by malcolm clapp
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