I received my first concertina, an Anglo Rochelle, from Homewood about 3 weeks ago, and I've quite naturally been having a tremendous amount of fun. As I work 12 hour nights (7pm-7am), sitting alone on a ferry, I have ample time to learn (it's going verrrryy, slow). When up in the early afternoon, I get online and spend the hours before work reading everything I can here and on all the links.

I was invited over to my friend's the other night as they had a friend and his wife visiting from the US, a prof in musical instruments, or some such, and they all wanted to see and hear the Rochelle. In the course of the evening the prof asked if I would like to see an old Wheatstone English that he knows is for sale ($800). The picture was a little blurry and showed the Wheatstone with it's box, but on first glimpse it looked fairly well used, most noticeable were the cracked leather thumb straps. So being new to this interest, and having a beginner's Anglo, I was less than enthusiastic.

Three days went by, and it kept popping back into my mind, so I got my list of questions together and e-mailed them to the seller. It's Wheatstone #4851, which I spent yesterday looking through the ledgers, to find, and if I have it right, it sold March 5th, 1853 to a James Brown Esq., the selling date being VERY important as it's my wife's birthday (now how can she resist me making an offer... ) The seller is an instrument collector (selling his collection, mostly guitars and mandolins) and seems well qualified to give an opinion. He says it's tuned to A=440, the bellows are in excellent shape, all keys work, comes with the original rosewood box. Today, at my request, he sent additional photos, guess next I will phone and ask him to play it.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

My questions are these. Should I bother continuing on this quest, as I'm a beginner, learning on an Anglo, would it be too much to also try to learn an English? I know it's buyer beware, and I'm in early stages, is this a fair ball park price? I am attracted to the affordability, if it's in pretty fair working order, and would consider having it looked at and reconditioned if the work was minor (affordable).

Sorry for the double post, I can't see a way to delete one, maybe moderator will.....

Wonder how that happened? Something I messed up for sure.....

[Note from Ken: Two threads merged, duplicate of initial post taken out. Cheers.]

My second concertina (the first was a stagi English) is similar to the one you are looking at: a rosewood Wheatstone with brass reeds dating from 1851. I'm quite fond of it. It is a very quiet, sweet instrument suitable for the parlor rather than the pub. It's bellows were a bit leaky when I got it and it needed some tuning (and while I was at it new valves and pads). Figure that sooner rather than later you might need to get similar work done on the one you are looking at. Mine has four fold bellows; this one has five, which is better. I paid a bit less than they are asking here plus about $600 for an overhaul. I think I got my money's worth. This one looks like it would need new thumb straps and a cleaning, but it still has its original spruce baffles. I've had both Button Box and Wim Wakker restore (very) old concertinas for me. I'd recommend either one; check the waiting list.

That said-- an English concertina is a quite different beast to play than an anglo. I couldn't wrap my brain around the anglo, but I find English quite logical. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks Larry, pubs are not in my future, mostly accompanying my wife on her fiddle in our home, so this sounds better all the time. I was just wondering if I was overloading myself, and if the asking price was reasonable (surprised after seeing so many selling off their first born on eBay, thought I would never be able to afford anything more than the Rochelle). As far as restoring it, well, if it became part of the family, I couldn't resist. Much like a loved pet, money might not be an object....sigh

5 fold bellows may be an indication of a better instrument.
Buffles is interesting, as they mellow the sound, but also may quiet it a bit, and brass reeds are quiet enough. I'm sure it'll be a better investment than Rochelle, as the prices for vintage instruments continue to rise. At least you may get your money worth, and Rochelle will lose 50% if you want to sell it.
I didn't have any difficulties neither with Anglo, nor with English. And having tried Crane and Hayden, must say none of the concertina layouts are difficult to learn.
English will naturally bring you to reading music, which is good, if you don't, and irrelevant, if you do already. With English you will NOT be able to play those automatic harmonies on the left side, but it's a good and bad thing. Good, because it will steer you away from Oom-pa style and force you to use more intelligent approach. Bad, because it will take time to learn, and some of the folk tunes really benefit from uplifting Oompa, but I personally never liked that Anglo-Concertina "Rrah-Rrrah" and sustained "chords" that sound pretty boldly and badly to me. I much rather like short stacatto chords and those can be used on the English as well.
I'd say, if you have the money, go for it, it's a good price, and once you have vintage instrument - you'll be in a solid family. Grab it while you can, soon with these gas prices you may not be able to afford anything beyond Rochelle. How many lifes do you have?
But check that it's airtight, or pay someone to make it airtight to avoid frustration.

Thanks m3838,

I am finally starting to attempt to read music, not the problem I thought it would be, but still in it's infancy with me.

I have $650, so far, so I'm close, and will get the rest in the next week or so.

I have a Ford PU, don't get me started on the price of gas...BUT, now I can stay home more and practice, practice, practice.....I NEED that Wheatstone!

Rusty,

To me the thumb straps look "a little frayed", rather than cracked, but bearing in mind that they appear like they may have been on the instrument since 1853, they don't look too bad at all. Anyway, it's not such a huge deal to change the straps.


If it's in concert pitch, and playable, then it sounds worth getting, and I'd certainly recommend giving the English a try - it's a great instrument and you might actually find you prefer it to the Anglo!

And for that matter, you can subsequently buy a top-class English for a fraction of the price you'd have to pay for an Anglo of lesser quality!

A fraction? I'd like to know where those are sold. The last time I checked we were talking about $3000-4000. Sigh. Now another, a little bigger sigh.
I've got lots of them.

But that's less than half, and maybe only a third of what good Anglos are fetching!

And I bought a top-quality Aeola, that was specially made for a well-known professional player, off eBay only a few months ago for £1,300, that is greatly admired by all the Anglo players round here, both for its tone and dynamic range. Better than any Jeffries and a quarter the price!

You mean Albions compete with top quality Aeolas?
Mmm. I tried one recently, but wasnt't particularly impressed with compression. How much did you put in yours to make it tight and responsive?
(please don't say "none". Say something like $10000 GBP)

Only if you manage to get the Aeolas for a good price - but this one was on eBay!


I'm not interested in compression, only how they play...

(And those two considerations can be mutually exclusive - if you make the springs strong enough to give perfect compression, the action becomes unplayable. )


Sorry, you're going to hate me!

When I got the instrument it was pretty lifeless, but then it hadn't been played since the death of its original owner in 1985... All I did was to play it for a few weeks and its voice magically returned, it now sounds absolutely magnificent, just as good as it did on all the recordings he made with it over the years.

Anybody wants to buy sighs? I guarantee the quality. Got tons of them.

To be fair, I suspect some people may have been put off by the relatively late date of the instrument (1937) and the fact that the bellows and sides were painted gold, which is now very worn-looking, but that (and the fact that it was for sale in the town its owner died in) was what gave me the clue to its identity: Alf Edwards' Concertina Sold On Ebay

Even the amboyna Aeola 50 Key Treble, on Ebay that had belonged to the Russian-American virtuoso Gregory Matusewitch, which may have set a record price, sold for only $6,450.55 in what appears to be good condition, when you sometimes see wrecks of Jeffries Anglos selling for around $10,000 on eBay...

English concertinas are much better value for money! (But don't tell anybody, or they'll all be buying them... )

Man, who knew a couple of weeks in Scotland, in April, would take me down this path? Life definitely has it's moments. Now I'm on the road to playing and collecting concertinas? Bring it on!

Hey Rusty

Another one bites the dust. http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...ost&p=17005

Be careful! It's addicting. There is a support group for that sort of thing.

Thanks
Leo

Thanks Leo....I'm not alone!

Aw heck, another obsession is beginning, I can feel it! Guess it just fits my personality type. Lets see, woodturner, paragliding pilot..... oh I can't go on..... obsession is my life. But at least I'll have an activity when parawaiting other than hackysack. Click to view attachment

Maybe I can dump all my camera equipment and take it aloft to play while cruising the ridge for hours Click to view attachment That would really confuse the people below

Trouble is, paragliding was my top obsession, now I'm considering using the money saved for a fly-in up in the interior this weekend, for the purchase of my first Wheatstone....now this is getting really depressing. What to do, what to do.......

My name is Stephen and I am a concertinaholic.

But I am getting better - even if I did have a relapse and buy the Henry Harley on eBay today.

It's the first concertina I've bought since the beginning of March - honest!

Some people's dilemmas...
You simply need a hot air balloon, then, without been able to steer it, you'll have nothng to do but playing. For hours? For days, I say.
Or just get a wife with 2 kids, they'll show you paragliding! And if you already have wife, get another one. (Oh, please! I'm just kidding)

Actually we knew.

I'm starting to show the awful signs; I bought another duet, not because I have any sort of player's excuse, but because I thought it was 'interesting', 'unusual', 'a bargain' etc. I'm still trying to work out how to explain to Sally before the cheque clears and she notices.

Is there no relief, Doctor?

(I'm waiting until it's been handed over before doing a post about it.)

Even I thought the HH was cute; I can quite understand buying that.

If you have been playing anglo you may find it difficult (at first) to get out of the push-pull habit for each note, but there are many players who play more than one system quite well.

The english has some interesting and logical symmetry, I myself couldn't get the swing of alternating scales back and forth from side to side, others thrive on it and make some great music.

as for me I am continuing my learning of "Chariots of Fire" on my Crane (which I recommend for anglo refugees), hoping to play it with my friend a conga player at an upcoming company BBQ, though we lost our fiddler so now I have to come up with a third player.

Dirge,

Thanks for the sympathy and support - and I'm sorry to hear that you're showing symptoms too.

I was tempted by that Harley the first time it was listed, and couldn't restrain myself when it came up again. It seems to be a very nice example of the later style of Harley and will make an interesting comparison with the early-style one I already have - which wears its German origins much more on its sleeve.


It wasn't in Bury St. Edmonds by any chance?

My apologies...I merged the two threads, Rusty, and didn't stop when I should have. I deleted one of your duplicate intial posts...Boom, the photos you attached disappeared. I'm not sure where they are. I have to go back to work in a few minutes; I'm teaching a summer intensive course and don't have much time to look right now. If you want to reattach them, try an edit; if you get grief about file space let me know and I'll see what I can do. Just goes to show you that you're better off doing it right your self so the dumb administrator doesn't try to fix it.

Ken Coles

Stephen..Dirge.....you guys really, really scare me....

Hooves

I feel more confident today that I'll be able to adapt to both, it's just getting the old brain to muscle memory my digits, and aquire some music reading skills and understanding.

From my wife's sheet music I worked out button tablature (hope that's the right term) to 'Margaret's Waltz' (Aly Bain) until 4am this morning. Played in 'A' major, I had no scale layout to go by in all my tutors, so I stuffed in 'Finale Print Music' what I thought were all the right buttons. Playing it sounded weird in places, so I realized I had to then go in and arrange for all the F#'s (sorry, new to all this music writing stuff, bare with me), big improvement!

Then, this afternoon I came out here to the camper (on my p.u. truck, it's my portable office that I take to work), and opened the file. I have just finished mapping alternate keying which makes the fingering waayyyy more logical, so now I'm experiencing my first real cross row exercise, and it's easier than I thought..... maybe more efficient would be a better description.

I'm working on this by myself because I want to surprise my wife with it this weekend, hopefully I'll be able to keep up...

Oh, I wondered why I couldn't post there for awhile, I'll indeed try an edit.

Don't worry Ken, I could have really messed it up. Great site by the way!

Edit worked flawlessly.

Oh, don't worry 'bout me, I just collect early ones to learn about the history of them (a complicated subject) and write about it, whilst I'm delighted to now have Alf Edwards' English as my playing instrument - it has the "definitive" sound for us old folkies!

It's that Dirge fella I'd be worried about...


Me too, I was trying to post at the time and had to open a fresh window to do so.

Hooves,

It's precisely this kind of remark that sends me surfing through Crane duet websites, used-dealers' homepages, button layouts and even the Salvation Army internert presence. And makes me realise that the Anglo is too tied to a few keys, and I need more. And that, with only an Anglo and a Bandoneon to call my own, I'm missing out on polyphonic capability. (And apart from that, what are two free-reed instruments? I've got 4 banjos of 2 different types, and 5 different autoharps. Got to redress the balance somehow ... )

In short, remarks like this exacerbate all the familiar symptoms of the addiction ...

Cheers,
John

Well there was one on Ebay the other day; why not just do it? Duets are good.

Mine cost a small fortune, but its wonderful, honestly I don't see why they don't make more.

I did not mean to de-rail this thread! ranting about my beutifully restored, charming and endearing, flexible, playable, remarkable and utterly marvelous Crane duet.

Note: I only have a Lachenal - perchance to dream -

oh ye concertina gods, to ponder the Flight of the Valkyries, my hooves bedecked in winged sandals, Icarus with forlorn and frantic digits plumetting below, Freja, naked angel of the north, your enchantment draws me nearer.

Dirge,
I know. I've worked out an excuse for overlooking those duets: "If my overdraft had been that much less than it was at the time, I'd have bid for it!"



Theoretically, you duet guys have got me converted.

Cheers,
John

Ah, but then you'll deal with having all notes available at all times, having all the keys with ease, and lots of written music to convert. You don't have to deal with your fingers, tied in a knot, dilemma of what part of score to play and what not, having to move low notes up and upper notes down...
But then, Dirge, are you beutifully restored, charming and endearing, flexible, plyable, remarkable and utterly marvelous?
Do you fit in your Duet company?
That's the biggest problem. I can't allow for my instrument, a speachless machine, to be better than me in every aspect. I don't want to wake up one morning in a padded case, played every day, feel screwdriver in my sacred cavities and be helpless against the marvelous, playable, and utterly powerful overlord.

Quite uncanny. We've never met, have we?