20 Button Bastari With Strange Tuning

[jagarch]

Hello all,

I'm a musician but not a concertina player. I have a flea market find that I'm curious about.

It's a 20 button Bastari, marked

Bastari

Ancona

Made in Italy

 

The instrument plays well and is in tune but is tuned as follows

 

top row

GG - D - G - B - d - ||| f# - a# - c#' - f#' - a#'' ---- push

D - F - A - c - e - ||| f ---- g# - b --- d# -- f' ---- pull

bottom row

D - A - d - f - a - ||| c# - f' - g# - c#'' - f'' ---- push

A - c# - e - f# - a# ||| c' - e' - f#' - a#' - c'' ----- pull

 

forgive me for messing up octave designations.

 

Is there a name for this tuning or is it a one-off or custom tuning? Why would someone tune like this?

Assuming it has no practical value to a beginning concertina player (does it?) is it possible to have it converted to standard G/D tuning easily and cheaply?

 

thanks in advance,

j

[jagarch]

So what do you guys think? It's essentially tuned to G/Dmi in the bass and F#/C# in the treble? Is this unheard of? A custom job for a contemporary classical piece? Someone was retuning it, got half way through and quit? Part of it went out of tune precisely a half step flat?

What's going on here?