I spotted this 71 key Maccan on Ebay and thought it a bit unusual.

I put in a cheeky bid and got it. I have even managed to tell my wife I bought another concertina. She's not talking to me.

I'll post my thoughts after anyone who's interested has had a go at deciphering the clues; I didn't have any more information than this to bid on.

does it help if you tell her you can only play one at a time?

And who's side are you supposed to be on then?

I told you you should have bought a Super Sports Morgan as well, whilst you were at it, might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb...

I'll say nothing more for now.

Hi Dirge.......there's a really nice guy who "lurks" on C.net and I'm sure he won't mind me sharing his observations with you ( in confidence,of course.) He reckons wives are like birds,they can count up to five eggs but don't notice any more than that !
I have a friend in Toronto who has an "office " mandolin and a "home" mandolin..........I tell him he just doesn't have enough yet.
Regs R***n

So I need to endure the grief of buying three more before it all bottoms out?

The thing that really irritates is I agreed to buy the thing and thought 'Oh F...k I'm in trouble again; I need to pull something out of the hat'. So I went and looked at my vehicle projects to see what I want less than another concertina and rather jammily managed to sell enough bits in short order to be able to say 'But it won't cost us anything because I have sold an equivalent value of old junk'. So my mechanical toys get straight swapped for another musical toy and I'm STILL in the doghouse. How unreasonable is that?

But the original Q was why did this particular concertina seem worth a punt?

Don't count on that, Dirge! I have six autoharps - I need them all because they mark stages in the development of the instrument, and they're all playable and all sound different, so I have an optimal one for every type of gig or recording, honest! - but this only makes my wife think that she can kidnap one as a hostage now and again if I don't behave.



A crying shame! But, being a wife, she probably thinks the revenue from the "junk" should go into a holiday, or new furniture, or something else of less lasting value than a concertina.

Cheers,
John

Ah, I must be a lucky man...

My girlfriend shares my musical instrument acquisition syndrom, and has convinced me that its a good idea to put in an order for a dipper some time in the near future.

No, you can't have her.

I was trying so had not to buy a concertina on ebay, that I bough a spinning wheel instead
Unfortunately my DH seems to to be able to count spinning wheels ... 1,2,3,lots! and has capped the number that I'm allowed at any one time. So now I have to sell one (bother!)

And what a little gem it is too! My mum is into spinning wheels as well. She's got four. They are all different types and sizes and all for different purposes. I just hope you weren't fleeced when you bought it.

Chris

PS Can you play the concertina and spin at the same time?

I spotted this one when it came on but I didn't bother letting you know because I didn't think you'd be in the market again so soon. I didn't spot any clues at all when I looked at it during the auction but now you mention it I spot the following:

It has a very low serial number, but these can become obscured and people not familiar with concertinas wouldn't spot it.
The brass fillet on the handstrap is something I wouldn't immediately recognise as Lachenal.
The scalloping under the handrests I simply don't recognise.
It looks in very fine condition overall, like a very late model or a good rebuild.
There's something about it that doesn't look Lachenal at all to me but I'm not sure what it is, perhaps it's the fretwork pattern but the pics aren't good enough. I can't even decide if the ends are flat or raised.

So what do we have here? A Lachenal with new ends made by Crabb? A metal ended New Model (I've never seen one)? A Wakker or Dipper rebuild? A Crabb? Does Koot Brits make duets? Or is it simply a beautifully kept or restored Lachenal that I simply don't recognise?

Did I miss anything obvious Dirge?

How about the fact that the ends are not radially symmetrical, Pete? It's not obvious in the picture and I looked long and hard before I was sure. It also took me a long time to convince myself that the ends were indeed raised.

It's described as in good order 'but missing a few small screws' or some similar phrase which added another concern, but certainly I could see it's got nice new handstraps, and those bellows have been rebound recently I think.

I wasn't in the market in theory but became thoroughly intrigued by the thing.

You're way off; try again!

Professor Chambers spotted it, and confirmed my opinion. He clearly has eyes like a condor when it comes to noting squeezebox oddities.

Now I don't take very much interest in such things, but a quick glance at some pictures of other large Maccanns suggests to me that it has Edeophone-type fretwork. So I wonder if that is an indicator of a pleasant surprise in relation to what you will find inside it?

Obviously the extra C/D drone key is a curiosity, though I've seen something similar before, in fact on the 81 key I mention below.

One other slight curiosity is that the RH keyboard lay-out is not quite the same as some others, notably the 72-key keyboard layout in Rutherford's manual. Normally the 4th column has the key furthest from the straps, but on this one it is the 5th column. It doesn't have an extra key in that column, rather it seems in exchange for a key normally at the other end of that column.

It seems to me that the seller of this concertina did not (remotely) do it full justice in his description of it, which may be why the price was so modest. (Either that or you will discover something truly nasty when you look inside.) The largest Maccans often go at a discount to those in the 62/67 range, because they are beginning to get bigger than most players are willing to lug, and sluggish with it. But I've seen a rather basic 81-key sell for a lot more than this.

So provided you don't mind its large size, you look to have got yourself a massive bargain.

OK I looked at the ad without much interest but something made me pause; it seemed a little odd. It took a while for me to pin down the 'lozenge shape', and a while longer to convince myself I wasn't dreaming it. I went off and did my research.

It seems to be a 'raised end' New Model. The number dates it arround 1892; the Edeophone design was registered in 1889, but doesn't seem to have been much publicised at first. I found a picture of Percy Honri with a very similar instrument. The Horniman museum has a similar one but much higher number; somewhere I found a comment that the 'stretched shape' continued to be ordered by bandsmen alongside the edeophones.

I could see rebound bellows and new straps, but there was this worrying comment about 'missing screws'.

When I bid(and indeed when I started this thread) I had it in mind that it was so close to the edeophone start date that there was a chance that I might have an instrument that Lachenal regarded as top of the range at the time. As I write this that seems overly optimistic. But I still have an interesting instrument, don't you think? I was sent some more pics after I'd bought it. Click to view attachment

Finally I sat down and tried to work out the range of the right hand, which has been the disappointment; unlike later 71s which have a B and Bb at the bottom of the register it seems to stop at C, which is a restricting nuisance. Fancy trading those useful notes for yet more 'squeakers'. Anyway, I'm not getting too upset about that; it's being delivered to Mike Acott for a once over, and he will be able to tell me what sort of disasters I've acquired with it!

Ok, I missed the lozenge shape - goodness knows why because it's fairly obvious on the ebay pic looking at it again but I did mention ...

I must get half a point for that. C'mon you meanie!

What, you expect half a point for this????



Mind you, as this has gone on the penny is dropping that I'm being a bit smug about what is in all probability just a standard second best Lach', yawn.

Sorry about that; still I'm pleased with it. I get to try it out in a month or so!

I think you are being overly pessimistic. If as you reckon its pre-Edeophone, then it was Lachenal's top model at the time.

I have a similar one that I'm selling for a friend, same lozenge shape, metal ends, metal buttons. It has the bright-toned, responsive reeds that you sometimes find in good metal ended New Model Lachenals.

Well it's not quite pre edeophone according to the popular dating techniques; I more or less sold it to myself that it counted as such, but it's probably just too new for that to apply. Shame eh?

Unlike the one you are selling mine's got ivory buttons, dead elephants add that extra touch of class, don't you think?

"Elephants never forget" so this will the ivory buttons remember tunes?

OK, so this is what I said in reply to a PM from Dirge, which was prompted by my asking if his mysterious new purchase happened to be in Bury St. Edmonds:

I was watching that one - an interesting box! You're right about the quality of it - it's a New Model in "stretched-hexagon" shape, similar to the ones that Percy Honri is seen playing in early (1890s-1900s) photos - with those big ivory buttons too. However, he seems to have switched to Wheatstone Aeolas when the Patent ran out and Wheatstone's could make them. I have the fretwork of a similar one, that was amongst some stuff of Tommy Williams' that I bought.

He asked me if it might be a pre-Edeophone top-of-the-range duet, and that's exactly what it is!

Meanwhile, my (and everybody else's) internet connection in Kilkee went down on Tuesday evening, and still hasn't been resumed...

Oh that's cheering, you reckon it's more than 'just' a New Model made for someone too parsimonious to shell out for an edeophone then? Sorry, I didn't register that. That's good, I can be a bit smug after all.