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Wheatstone Crane S/n Oddity


Daniel Hersh

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The number 12 appears internally as a batch number. It looks like some one has removed the serial number from the label, but the style of the badges would suggest the 1930s as a build estimate, which ties in with the seller's documentation.

 

Bellows are interesting. I don't recall seeing anything quite as "fancy" on an ebony finished duet of this quality.

 

Had a quick look at the ledgers, and though there are maybe a dozen possibilities, I can see nothing conclusive. Sharper eyes than mine may notice something I have missed....

Edited by malcolm clapp
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The number 12 appears internally as a batch number. It looks like some one has removed the serial number from the label, but the style of the badges would suggest the 1930s as a build estimate, which ties in with the seller's documentation.

Am I missing something? The photos I see of the end and the pad board are all of the right hand end. Serial number plate would be on the left hand end. I am a bit surprised not to see the SN stamped internally, at least not on any of the parts in the photographs. I wonder if any of the accompanying documents mentions the serial number.

 

Bellows are interesting. I don't recall seeing anything quite as "fancy" on an ebony finished duet of this quality.

Well, the instrument has almost certainly been worked on since it was first made, since there are patched cracks in the pad board. But I don't think we have any way of knowing -- unless it's in the acompanying papers -- whether the gold stamping on the bellows was original or added later.

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Everything about it says high-quality "Lachenal" to me, except for the 1930's Wheatstone fretwork and brown leather valves. It may be one that was rebuilt by Wheatstone's in that decade, or quite possibly one they put together from Lachenal parts after they bought the latter out (including unfinished instruments according to Tommy Williams) in 1933.

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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It would be interesting to know how (or if) instruments made from Lachenal parts were dealt with in the ledgers.

Can't see much evidence of such things there, except for the odd reference to an edeophone. Makes me wonder how many there actually were....

 

Jim, there was a photo on the eBay listing of the left hand label, appearing to show the number 12 scratched onto it. Presumably the original number had been removed at some point. That photo appears to have now been deleted.

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It would be interesting to know how (or if) instruments made from Lachenal parts were dealt with in the ledgers.

Can't see much evidence of such things there, except for the odd reference to an edeophone. Makes me wonder how many there actually were....

 

It's something I referred to towards the end of my paper Some Notes on Lachenal Concertina Production and Serial Numbers and why I concluded that Lachenal's must have closed down in 1933, rather than 1936 as Tommy Williams had told Neil Wayne:

 

"The date they closed down is problematic. Tommy Williams told Neil Wayne: ‘we finally closed in 1936—it was the Depression, very often they’d have no money to pay out for the workmen. They’d go and say, “Where’s the money?”, and the boss got so fed up, he decided to close the works down’. And whilst an article in the 1950 Accordion Review stated: ‘For some years Lachenal made Concertinas for Wheatstone’s but afterwards started a business of his own which became the famous firm of Lachenal & Co. of London which was incorporated with Wheatstone’s in 1934’, I have still not managed to find a definitive date for the closure, and there seems to be evidence (below) to suggest that it actually occurred even earlier, probably in 1933.

Williams went on to say (in the same interview): ‘Well, the machinery, and all that, was put up for sale, along came Wheatstone’s and bought the bloomin’ lot up, and scrapped most of it. Nobody else could get it. . . It all went for as little as a hundred quid, including the gas oil that drove the machinery. They took barrow loads of unfinished work; they’d really come into it alright!’. And I have now discovered that those pieces of ‘unfinished work’ start to appear in the Wheatstone ledgers as early as the autumn of 1933 with the following two consecutive entries:

Sept 22 [Model] 51 Rosewood 26 keys Lach’ 33053

Oct 10 Accordeaphone 1st 40 keys 33054

 

There is also, in connection with a pair of concertinas completed around that same time, a reference to ‘1st Erin’ (their first use of the plastic Erinoid) a material that Lachenal’s had been using to make buttons since the late 1920s. Wheatstone’s had not used it previously, but continued to use it thereafter:

Sept 11 1st Erin 48 keys Black & White 32947

,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 32948"

And thereafter a number of entries have a 'Lach' or 'Lac' annotation to them, whilst at least one more (a rosewood 'piano concertina' with black and white keys) sounds like a very probable Lachenal.

 

I remember buying an amboyna piccolo Anglo long ago off Paul Davies (which he'd found in the Chow Bazaar in South Mumbai, India) that was evidently a Lachenal finished off by Wheatstone's, but the fretwork was all stoved in and I can't remember how, or if, it was badged...

 

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Jim, there was a photo on the eBay listing of the left hand label, appearing to show the number 12 scratched onto it. Presumably the original number had been removed at some point. That photo appears to have now been deleted.

 

No, it's still there, below the main eBay photo, where it was previously.

 

Maybe it never got given a Wheatstone serial number... :unsure:

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I wouldn't have thought that your examples quoted from the ledgers exactly equate to "barrow loads" :huh:

However, very informative, Stephen, and thanks.

 

My quick search of the ledgers was concentrated on 55 key/model 74 descriptions, which the instrument in question appears to be. Not very many of those during the 1930s, and none that I could see with any out-of-the-ordinary descriptions.

 

My guess would be that, during this period, most new Crane Duets would have been supplied for Salvationist purposes, and perhaps 48 keys was a compromise between versatility and cost, and hence the slightly larger number in evidence.

 

As a Crane "dabbler", and in the belief that I own Wheatstone's earliest Crane (#26228 from 1913), I should do a bit more hunting through the ledgers and come up with some reliable production figures (at least for Wheatstones). Now that I no longer undertake repairs, I *should have* lots of time on my hands..... Hmmm, well, in theory.... :D

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  • 1 month later...

I wouldn't have thought that your examples quoted from the ledgers exactly equate to "barrow loads" :huh:

 

Well I did describe my examples as elements of Lachenal production starting to appear in the ledgers (which is what was significant for the purposes of my article) - it was never intended to be an exhaustive list Malcolm. Whilst Wheatstone's probably later finished off others without bothering to comment on their origins.

 

Also, they started a new (seperate) Anglo production ledger shortly after that, which is now (sadly) missing - there could be a good few of them in that...

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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