Concertina Museum

Here is a label from a Lachenal English number 60325 (1930s), scanned by spindizzy (Chris) and edited by tallship (Pete). Clicking on the small image will give you the full file (1300 by 800, about 400 KB as a jpeg).

2005-02: A few concertina-related images courtesy of Tony Kell:

From a 12" record sleeve:

Regal Records catalogue from 1931:

Wheatstone brochure, ca. 1930(?)

An 8-page pricelist from H. Crabb and Son, 1984, scanned and sent in by Peter Stephenson

• Page 1
• Page 2
• Page 3
• Page 4
• Page 5
• Page 6
• Page 7
• Page 8

• A photo of the Concertina concert at the 1981 Willie Clancy summer school in Ireland.

• Three Wheatstone English concertinas. Photo by John Nixon.

   • How I Acquired My Crabb, By Roger Digby

Original Jeffries receipt, supplied by Roger Digby

   • Maccann, MacCann or McCann? By Bob Gaskins

   • The Lady Louisa Bulteel Wheatstone: June 18, 1860, Johannes Bosch

   • Photos by Peter Laban.

• Be sure to see the original Lachenal Duet brochure with keyboard layout and price list in the Lachenal section of the Buyer's Guide.

Alexander Prince, 1921. Courtesy of Tony Kell (kells@dial.pipex.com) : "Taken from the sheet music of one of his own compositions entilted 'Hello' - 'something Merrie and Bright for Pupils on the Duet' from which his published address at the time was Glebe St., Nottingham."

"A nostalgia photo of Reed & Delroy. It includes a couple of probably 64 key concertinas amongst the other instruments they played. I know nothing of them other than they played in Blackpool, a seaside town in the north west of the UK, where my 'pal' - an old concertina player himself, met them and was given this souvenir photo."

From Mark Davies (113154.2051@compuserve.com):

"From 1972 up to his death in 1984 I played with the great concertina player Harry Hatton of Haydock, Lancashire. He was an English player who knew many of the great concertina players throughout the UK. I remember going to see Reed & Delroy with Harry Hatton in the late 1970's early 1980's. If my memory serves me correctly they had purchased the concertinas that had belonged to Jack Easy of Fleetwood (another variety artist). They were multi-instrumentalists and were very good. I think they lived in Blackpool."

[Note from Paul: I had NO idea what the various prices meant and how the mysterious British currency system worked, so Randy was kind enough to explain:]

Here is how it worked prior to 1971:

• s = shilling (not to be confused with the Austrian "Schilling.") (/) also stands for shilling (e.g. 50/- is 50 shillings)
• d = pence
• 20 shillings per British pound (I think the exchange rate was about US $4.80 per pound in the relevant period.)
• 12 pence per shilling. Therefore, 240 pence per pound
• 41/ = 41 shillings = 2 pounds and 1 shilling = 2 pounds and 12 pence

Decimalization was introduced in 1971. Shilling was retained, but eqaul to 5 new pence. So under the new system, 100 new pence per pound. The pence finally became a "penny."

"Lachenal got people to do "home working" (Tommy Williams, for example). Lachenal provided a tuning bellows and a set of in-tune reeds. Their job was to use the in-tune reeds to tune a set of untuned reeds. It looks pretty much like a standard set of bellows (even has the usual checkered bellows papers) with two reed carriage slots on top (one for the in-tune reed and one for the reed to be tuned). It has its own little wood case. One of these bellows is in the Wayne Collection at the Horniman Museum, and Hobgoblin Music has one. There are probably others around. I actually use mine for minor tuning and reed tweaking."

These three images show the original sales receipt for a Lachenal concertina and copies of the original "linens" and gold-tooled straps. The serial number on the instrument (140871) is almost surely dated to the date of 1895 on the receipt, as the receipt states that the instrument is a "Special concertina made as per instructions, extra reed carriage" and so is not likely a resale.