Nickolds Bros Late With C. Wheatstone Label

[nkgibbs]

Dear C.netters,

 

I would be very interested to hear if anyone has come across this label before?

 

I imagine it to be an early Nickolds Bros label and that Mr Wheatstone was not too happy to have his name emblazoned on his ex-employee's product…….unless of course he made the concertina and supplied it to the Nickolds ?

 

 

Neil

 

Edited February 21, 2016 by nkgibbs

[nkgibbs]

Dear C.netters,

 

From the deafening silence that has greeted this question I presume that this label is new to many?

 

I realise that showing the label only gives a small part of the story so here are other pictures; Numbered 41; Nickolds type reed screw plates and Wheatstone (?) type levels and posts.

 

 

 

 

I presume that this was one of the first Nickolds produced but used some Wheatstone-made parts?

 

Neil

[Stephen Chambers]

I would be very interested to hear if anyone has come across this label before?

I thought I had, but it was more than 40 years ago and I had to check back and confirm that my recollection was correct.

In my early days of buying concertinas I had an amboyna wood Nickolds Bros., #69, with the same "fake Wheatstone" label. But not yet collecting/researching early concertinas myself at that stage, I traded it with Neil Wayne and it's listed as C212 in the catalogue of his original "Concertina Museum Collection", and presumably now resides at the Horniman Museum.

In that original collection Neil had another Nickolds with the same label too, a rosewood-ended one numbered 110.

I imagine it to be an early Nickolds Bros label and that Mr Wheatstone was not too happy to have his name emblazoned on his ex-employee's product…….unless of course he made the concertina and supplied it to the Nickolds ?

 

I'm sure C. Wheatstone & Co. were not at all happy about this misleading label, which I'd see as suggesting more than a hint of "bad blood" on the part of Nickolds Bros.

 

I presume that this was one of the first Nickolds produced but used some Wheatstone-made parts?

 

I think you may be missing the point about how concertinas were typically made in the mid-19th century Neil. Nobody at that time made a concertina in its entirety, the components were made "outdoor" by specialist craftsmen/contractors (such as the Nickolds family, who were machinists/tool makers) and then "finished" (undegoing their final assembly) "in house". Wheatstone's didn't actually make any of the parts themselves...

 

However, what did usually happen was that the same small pool of specialist craftsmen collaborated with oneanother to each build "their own" labelled concertinas, that tend to look very similar because the same people made the ends, bellows etc. George Jones' memoir Recollections of the English Concertina, from 1844) is very revealing about what went on...

[nkgibbs]

Stephen,

Many thanks for your typically insightful comments on this.

I wonder how long the Nickolds Bros put this label on their instruments; Neil Wayne has #136 in his Concertina Museum with a different label, so presumably somewhere between the #110 that you mention above and #136 ?

Do you think that Wheatstone took legal action or just 'sent the boys round' to sort it out…..or maybe, if everyone was collaborating on parts supplies, the whole thing was resolved over a pint ?

 

Neil

Edited March 17, 2016 by nkgibbs

[Stephen Selby]

A nice example of 'Ambush Marketing'. A bit like 'Pepsi Cola -- Not the official sponsors of the Olympics.'