Have I just spotted the first Jeffries 38 key G/D anglo of spring, on e-bay ?

Pete.

No, Peter - that one has already been reported in the Buy-Sell forum!

If I were being pedantic I would say that he had spotted the first G/D of spring etc, but that he was not the first to spot it!!

Come to think of it, is it actualy spring yet? I know the Daffs are up, but is it officially spring ?

Clive

I've never seen a spotted concertina before. I'm not sure I'd want you to spot mine. Where did you say the pictures are?
Not in Australia, that's for sure.

And I heard that Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow, so I guess not in America, either.

The Daffs are up in England. Wow. In upstate New York it's one arctic air mass after another. I'll look forward to a wave of expensive concertinas bringing on spring. I'm curious about what it's like to play a G/D but I think my debt rationalization powers are in a weakened condition.
E

Que?


Oh, go on! Spoil yourself!

Chris

An old (by American standards, of course) superstition is that if the groundhog (a large, burrowing rodent, also known as a "woodchuck") doesn't see his shadow on "Groundhog Day" (i.e., if it's overcast), then winter is over, but if he does see his shadow, winter will continue for several more weeks. (I don't remember the exact day or number of weeks, but you can Google "Groundhog Day"; I'm too lazy.)

Somewhere along the way, the town of Punxatawney, Pennsylvania and "their" groundhog, "Phil", became established the focal point for national media broadcasting the event of a groundhog leaving his burrow and people observing whether he had a shadow. (This has been going on for far longer than any single groundhog's lifetime, but hey....)

Six weeks. It's SIX more weeks of winter if he sees his shadow.

I know. I have been counting the weeks 'til Spring.

Hey, whatever works. It's warm today. FINALLY. See it works. Two more weeks and we're done with winter. Just P.Phil, the groundhog weather predictor extradinaire.

Helen

Well, I guess in England we say: if it's stopped being cold, wet, and horrible for a little while, then Winter's about to start again.

Chris

The one I heard was about a different English season:
..."Lovely summer we had this year, yes?"
..."Oh yes, both days of it!"

Or the Irish version:
..."Y'know, you really should come visit us this summer... I think it's a Tuesday this year."

Here in Denmark we joke about having only two seasons: the white winter,... and the green winter.

Or the old Bob Hope Classic:

'You can tell when its summer in England - the rain's warm'

Clive

Or summer in Maine. . . The Rain In Maine is definitely a Pain. Not to mention the tiny hard-biting insect called the Black Fly that makes the months of May and June almost intolerable. . . it looks nice outside but if you go out you will be bloodied!

I've always counted myself fortunate that the English summer usually falls on my birthday - July 29th.

Chris

And in Vermont they say the year comprises 8 months of fine skiing and 4 of tough sledding....

They say if March comes in like a Jeffries on Ebay it goes out like...

OK, I'll bite.

... A Stagi on sedatives.

Chris

............In Somerset,England,standing on the Quantock hills looking over the Bristol channel to Wales,people would say......if you can see Wales, it'll rain in half an hour,if you can't see Wales,it's raining already ! !
Robin

I didn't creep this thread...someone else did......

I use to have that view across the Bristol Channel when I lived in Watchet.
When I lived on the Gower peninsula, at the other side where the weather was more changeable, the advice was "If you don't like the weather just wait ten minutes."

Robin Madge

........a lamb ?

This thread has gone full circle. Has the Jeffries ben sold yet ?

The auction ends on Friday, but so far there have been no bids at all. Could a £2500 opener with a presumably higher reserve be just too high for today's economy?

For a private sale I agree, unless you are willing to go and have a try while the auction is in full swing. It's different if say Barlycorn is the seller. Perhaps a team of concertina people could visit the private sellers and give an evaluation of an item up for sale.... Would you be prepared...? There could be check list , the usual points you would look for. But it would be a tricky job.

As I think I said in the original thread, if the box is as advertised, and if I was buying from a dealer such as Chris Algar, then I would expect to pay about 3000 pounds or a little more. I'm pretty certain of my ground on that. But of course I would have had the chance to play and examine it first. I think the vendor is being a little over-ambitious, and I do expect it not to sell, but we shall see...

Chris

Afterthought: it seems to me that we've seen the end of concertina prices soaring ahead of inflation. In the case of top quality anglos, the price of a good second hand instrument is now (very roughly!) about the same as a new concertina from the Dippers or Suttner. IMHO that's where it should be, but I'm just as happy the price is no longer going up - I didn't buy my instruments as an investment (and I don't imagine anyone else on this list has either).

English and duet concertinas are still selling for well below the price of a new box from one of the makers, but they appear to have stopped going up in value as well. It seems to me we've seen enough of the new accordion-reeded concertinas sell second-hand to get a feel for how they hold their value. It looks to me as if they'll lose perhaps a couple of hundred pounds when sold on, but that's all. After that it's all down to condition. I guess this is what you'd expect; they don't degenerate with age in the way a Stagi can be expected to, but on the other hand they don't have the rarity of a Jeffries to push the price up. Rich and Frank and Bob and Harold et al are all too busy making new instruments for us all to play. And long may they do so.

Well, that was a long afterthought, but I would welcome other people's thoughts on the curent state of the market.

Chris

In Ebay auctions I have kept an eye on, many serious buyers don't enter until late. This auction has already eliminated the hopeful by setting a higher first bid and reserve, so only serious buyers can bid. It is always fun to speculate on the reserve, and if the first bid was set at £2500 I reckon the reserve would be around £2750.

By fluke of exchange rates this Jeffries is still at a low price if you are buying from Australia. Six months ago £2500 was $7500, now it is $6000. I won't be bidding though.

regs

Chris

The American dollar, however, has gone the other way.

£2500 is now about $4665.
In January it averaged about $4375.
In December it averaged $4040.
And in late 2002 I believe it was more like $3535.

I.e., for a stable pound price the dollar price has increased by 30% in 2 years or less. Whether prices are "steady", "rising", or "falling" depends very strongly on where you live.

I don't know what percentage of the world market is Americans, but I'll bet they put some constraints on prices.

A very good point well made.

Chris

Yes, US prices have come down by a third for us in Australia over that period as well. A good time to import lots of concertinas...

Chris

The Jeffries was passed in at £2851, after 7 bids all in the last three hours.

Of note is the bid from Barleycorn at £2801, which may be a good indication of the wholesale price from someone who knows concertinas and probably this one in particular.

regs

Chris

Which is probably close to the retail price. Unlike everyday goods, the price of concertinas doesn't double each time they change hands.

Jeffries are expensive, but there's very little profit if you pay open-market rates for them, especially if you then pay to restore them before reselling.

Personally I would have thought that if Chris algar would pay that then he must have thought he could have sold it on at a reasonable profit. Even if he was looking to make a modest 10% on the transaction that would put the retail price at about £3100. Perhaps he works on a lower margin than that!

Personally, if I'd had the money, I would probably have gone to to £3000. After all it is a Jeffries, and it is 38 keys, and would have complimented my 36 key G/C nicely.


Clive.

Since hearing of a Jeffries selling for $7800 here in the northeast U.S. I'm not surprised by any of the numbers. I've been looking at the scans of the Concertina & Squeezebox magazines and it's painful to see the prices. My Gibson mandolin only doubled in value over the same period and that only half paid for my concertina. Did someone say this trend was over? Maybe so, the G/D didn't sell, at least on Ebay. I suspect it has been sold by now though.

E

Where did you get the scans of Concertina and Squeezebox ???

Ah, but you didn't. (Maybe that should be: You didn't, and you didn't?)

The fact is, nobody did.


If I knew of at least two people paying that much, I might begin to wonder, but it sounds to me like it's just somebody with more money than knowledge of the market. I'm sure (s)he could have done better by going to Barleycorn.

In the other direction, I'm told of somebody who got a Dipper about a year ago for $1500. And the seller also had a Jeffries and a Crabb -- not for sale, -- so he must have understood what he was selling.

See this thread... scans

Chris

Perhaps sellers are using e-bay as a kind of shop window, Hey everybody I've got one of these for sale. I do'nt expect you to buy it unseen but you know where to contact me....

And a seller willing to take any advantage. Can there be a reason for one Jeffries to be worth $6000 and another to be worth $7800? I am truly interested in this. Should one expect to get something less than top shelf for $6000?
E

But Jim as I said, Chris Algar thought he could buy it for £2800 and obviously thought that he could sell it for more than that. Lets face it, as trader he will know better than anyone what he could sell it on for, and would not be interested in buying something at full Market price. Hence my assertion that he probably thought the retail value > £3k

Even if I had had the £3000, I would have travelled to look at it first, before bidding. Perhaps it was the buying blind that put people off.


Clive

$7800? Maybe if somebody found a Jeffries that had never even been played, but sat in its box on a shelf until now. (I once saw a Wheatstone like that, but never a Jeffries.)

But even $6000... do you know anyone (aside from the $7800 buyer) who has paid that much for a Jeffries? Not an amount in pounds that would be $6000 at today's exchange rate, but an amount that was $6000 at the time they paid it? Currently, $6000 is about £3250. A year ago £3250 would have been "only" about $5200. (And £3000 would have been about $4750.)

As I pointed out before, assuming no change in prices in pounds, in dollar terms they've still gone up by about 15% in the past year and 30% in somewhat over 2 years. So I wonder, are Americans actually paying these "inflated" prices? Meanwhile, from an Irish perspective I believe the exchange against the UK pound has remained fairly steady, while prices have actually dropped in terms of Australian dollars.

I suspect (I don't know) that American purchases in the UK concertina market have dropped considerably over the last couple of years, and that any net flow of instruments between the two countries may be changing direction.

Added later: Oops! I think I may have argued the wrong point above. The $6000 price that was quoted was in Australian dollars, not US dollars. $6000 Australian is still "only" $4500 US.

But how much more? You assumed "a modest" 10% profit. His bid should represent the most he would be willing to pay, since he would actually pay less if the other bids didn't push the price that high. If I were in his business, I might make my bid limit one that produced no profit at all, though I wouldn't want to take a loss. Why? I couldn't do no-profit on all deals, of course, but I could afford to do it occasionally in order to maintain my reputation for being able to supply high-quality instruments.



Certainly, less knowledge means greater uncertainty/risk, and that should affect the amount you're willing to bid. The fact that the instrument was purchased from Barleycorn 5 years ago in restored condition would generally be considered a positive factor, a reduction of risk. On that count, Chris might know more than we do, even without examining the instrument. He might well remember the particular instrument, and if he knows the person who bought it, he might even have some idea as to how it's been treated in the interim.

Now I'm not saying Chris couldn't get £3100 -- or more -- in reselling that instrument. What I am saying is that it's unwise to assume that he could. And of course, this is all after the fact. During the auction, we had no way of knowing whether he had bid £2800, or £2300, or £3300, or whatever. And I think it's likely that his bid would have been lower -- perhaps much lower -- for that very same instrument if he didn't have prior knowledge of it.

So much for Jeffries market forces economy!

If you take the point made by Clive, £2,800 is an indication of a dealer's acceptable purchase price, the economics will run something like:

£2,800,

plus between £150 and £250 repair/ service/ overhaul cost (subject to condidtion and assuming bellows are sound);

plus around 20% markup.

I would think that a dealers target value would probably be closer to £3,600 or more.

(S)He would then say its insurance value is getting up to £4,000. The happy (but skint) new owner would then take on board the percieved value of £4k, (we all like a bargin!) and so the spiral continues.

And yes, I do know some people (personaly) who buy and keep concertinas as an investment.

What breaks my heart is the collection in the Horniman where tens and tens of instruments are treated like artifacts, decaying and unplayed. Heaven knows what they would be worth, in playing order; and what joy they could release amoungst the musical community.

Dave

Well, Dave, I think you've outlined the philosophy that in other realms creates boom-and-bust cycles.
Nothing can grow without limit; even cancer and nuclear explosions are eventually self-limiting.

Even if all your assumptions were true (I'll get to that), eventually we would run out of people able -- never mind willing -- to pay the increase to the next-higher level of the spiral. Are we there, yet? I don't know. But even last summer I noticed several instruments on eBay going for noticeably less than similar instruments 6 months or a year earlier.


I wouldn't take that as typical. As I've already argued, it should represent the maximum that dealer would be willing to pay. He would hope to get it for less. And on that basis I suspect it's also higher than he would bid on an instrument he knew less about. So I think it's unwise to take that bid as a kind of "market average" wholesale price.


Bought from Chris 5 years ago. Unless it's been badly abused, the bellows are almost certainly sound (possibly even new) and the overhaul cost may in fact be negligible.


20% may be a good target average markup, but in this business one can't apply the same markup to every instrument. Instruments obtained at bargain prices shoud be marked up more, and can compensate for instruments that bring little or no profit. (Doing your own restoration can also make a big difference in expense and thus in the markup requirement.)


Nice as a target, but what if it's not realistic?

For that matter, what if he thinks he could sell it for £3600, but that the number of buyers able to pay that much is severely limited, that most can't afford more than £3000? Word gets out that the "dealer selling price" is £3600, and suddenly individual sellers are expecting him to pay more than he can make a profit on, and in effect his supply has dried up.

That's seems to be what happened on this auction, the seller expecting more than the market was willing to pay. No one, neither dealer nor private buyer, bid as much as the seller's reserve. That alone suggests that -- regardless of the argument that led to it -- your derived price of £3600 is not a realistic expectation. (Perhaps achieveable in an individual case, but not to be expected.)


Do they make a living at it?

With all due respect to logic and speculation, why doesn't someone email or ring up Chris and find out his current price on Jeffries models?

My inquiries to Chris have consistantly put C/G Jeffries and vintage Crabb prices in the 3000 to 3500 pound range.

I have the impression that Mr. Algar does not have any trouble selling these instruments. A quick turnover would allow him to work with a smaller profit margin. (But we are back to speculation again!)

At any rate several other Jeffries I have followed recently had asking prices of $6000. and $7000. US dollars. They both sold but I cannot confirm the final sale prices.

One last thought. It is often a dilemna for musicians who would like to have a quality instrument to come up with the cash. Meanwhile we are buying or financing automobiles that cost as much or more than a vintage instrument. After 5 to 10 years the car is usually ready for the scrap heap; a good concertina is ready for the next 100 years!

Perhaps we need a "Concertina Bank" to enable us to pay off an instrument on monthly installments. Certainly makes "cents" to me!

Regards, Greg

Yes, I have, at the end of last year, $6000 US dollars. It's a very nice instrument, not mint or gold plated or anything. The cost seemed in line with the going rate as far as I could see. Someone forwarded me an email from Chris Algar that wasn't specific but indicated a range of cost for various types of things. The high end Jeffries and Wheatstone figure was around 3500 (pounds). Since that time there was a Jeffries offered on the Buy and Sell forum for $6000. I don't know whether it sold but I assumed it did. Reading comments that people make like "...if you can even find one for sale", can certainly make one more eager to buy. When I decided to look into getting a good concertina last year there was a Jeffries on Ebay. I had some correspondence with the seller. It was new to the market, so to speak, having belonged to the seller's friend's grandfather. They started the bidding pretty high based on having seen a couple of Jeffries sell on Ebay for over $4000 in the past year. This one went for over $5000. I only had a low bid. I was worried about paying top dollar for something needing restoration. I ended up wishing I had gone for it. At the time I came across a Suttner being sold by Elderly Instruments. I decided I'd buy that and be sure of having a good instrument to play immediately. Wrong. It was unplayable, out of tune and making various weird noises. That was for $3500. They offered to pay for putting it in order but I didn't want to wait months for that. I returned it. It went back onto their listing but shown as On Hold. I figured they were having it tuned. Someone posted notice of it here in one these forums and it was gone shortly afterward. The scratches near the screws looked like a drunk attempted some repairs and it came with a bag of spare springs. It's probably fixed up and serving someone well now. My other dealings with Elderly have been good. Concertinas are not their area of expertise. There's another funny (at this point) story here. Elderly sold my mandolin, on consignment, and the Suttner was returned about the same time. I called to be sure the mandolin got there and it had but the guy told me that they weren't interested in the concertina. He said something about it not being as good as a Stagi or Bastari! It turned out someone else had sent them some junk concertina and they weren't sure who.
E

Ouch! I guess I'm lucky I got mine when I did. And I'm sure they were bargains even back then. I guess I'm just having trouble believing that in these hard economic times, prices on concertinas can continue to inflate at double-digit rates.

Supply and demand are funny things, though. So much can depend on perception. You quote,Yet I've seen more Jeffries sold in the past year than individual Jeffries instruments I heard of existing during my first 15 years as a concertina player -- and occasional repairer (in America). Impatience can be another factor. Some folks are willing to wait years for just the right instrument... or just the right price. Others are willing to pay a huge premium just to have it now!

Is it just Jeffries, or are prices on other high end anglos -- e.g., better Linotas and New Model Lachenals -- inflating as fast? What about the cheaper anglos, Englishes, and duets?

One more point: A Barleycorn price on a Jeffries is based on two reputations, Jeffries' and Chris Algar's. What fascinates me is that there are others -- especially those who don't deal mainly in concertinas (I dare not name names) -- who seem to get away with charging more for less quality.

And uniformity in either instruments or prices is still not the rule. You paid $6000 for a Jeffries, and you heard of somebody who paid $7800, but the fact is that the highest recorded bid in this eBay auction was still only $5300.

Please don't, unless you're planning to buy.
My experience is that Chris deliberately doesn't advertise a stock of instruments and prices for all to see; he listens to your individual needs -- including price -- and then presents you with zero or more instruments that he thinks might meet those needs.
If you just contact him to ask about "current prices", you're wasting his time, and probably your own.

Then I guess that's about right. But his instruments are fully restored. I would expect to pay considerably less for an instrument that was unrestored, or whose condition I didn't know.

He doesn't.

Volume, not just speed, is the key. I don't think there are enough Jeffries instruments to support volume dealing.
I think it's fair to say that the bulk of his business and his profit come from the sale of non-Jeffries instruments.

Which brings us to an idea which is finally beginning to make sense to me:

While there is something unique and delightful about a Jeffries sound, there are many fine and delightful instruments out there that are not half as expensive as a Jeffries. (The reworked Lachenals that Paul Groff sells come to mind)

And, whether you're a fan of the accordian reed or not, the quality, rivetted action and especially the lower cost of concertinas made by the Tedrows, Edgleys, Morses, and other current makers have much to recommend themselves to prospective buyers.

Although a quality concertina is not inexpensive, it seems to me, we are lucky to live in a time when there are many concertina choices.

Greg

When you think that some of the new hand made instrument prices are in the £4000 price mark I know what I would buy given the same option.Jeffries are not plentifull a small number of anglos have gone recently at about £2700 to £2900 but these had work to do on them.If I were younger I would buy now or certainly if I was American crash in as soon as the Dollar rate improved.I think Jeffries are cheap in comparison and you are buying a concertina for life not just for Xmas.
Good Jeffries and Wheatstones are available now but what happens if our instrument starts becoming more popular,like it did when I bought mine,you will regret that you did not buy.I think the prices will never go down they may be static but I cannot see them becoming any cheaper.
Al

You may be right, but one never can tell.

If the popularity of concertinas does decline again, I expect it will take some time, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I've met more than one individual who got a beautiful instrument for £5 in the 1950s or '60s... because "nobody" wanted them. Indeed, many of the instruments coming on the market today seem to have been neglected in closets and attics for anywhere from decades to a century. They were quite popular for a while... and then they weren't.

A few decades earlier there was the Great Depression, at least in the US, when many families had to sell everything they had of value at pitifully low prices, just to put food on the table. Think it can't happen again? Well, I hope not, but the only reason the US unemployment statistics aren't climbing at the moment is because there's a time limit on government unemployment benefits, and when you've passed that limit you officially become not part of the work force, and so you are not counted as "unemployed" even if you have no job and are in fact actively looking for one. If they reported how many of those people there are, it might scare you.

Sorry for what may seem a political polemic, but my point is really that if you tell yourself, "It can't happen here," you might be lucky, but you could also be (as we say in America) "cruisin' for a bruisin'." That certainly doesn't apply only to concertinas -- consider the stock markets, -- but neither does it necessarily exclude them.

I have no trouble with the concept of $6000US being a fair price for a good concertina and for some concertinas it may well be a bargain.

I have a Jeffries G/D. Every time I pick it up it makes me feel better. The thing is a joy germ. It seems to defy the theory of relativity; it is bigger than the box it lives in. No matter the price, it is cheaper than chocolate bars, new cars or therapy sessions, boats, travel, fast women, name your own money drain...

When I found it, cheap and by chance, I had no idea what I was buying, just buying on a brand name. And I certainly would not have paid US$6000 for it then. But I would now. I'd pay it like a shot. If I could guarantee getting a C/G as good (not every Jeffries is great) I'd pay that tomorrow. Just give me overnight to work out where the money is coming from. You don't get so much for kids these days...

Chris

Out of interest I looked out the valuation of my early Jeffries 36 key G/C that Colin Dipper did for me last year while he was doing some work on it.

He valued it at £3500 for insurance purposes (which we all know is normally well above market value), and stated £2850 for an equivalent new instrument, which I presume was what he would actually charge.


So, if it was stolen what would I do, pay £2850 and wait four years, or spend £3000 on a 38 key jeffries (gaining two extra keys) that I could have now?

Much as I would love to own a Dipper, its no contest really, is it?



Clive