What The Heck is This Thing?
A Weird Lachenal

Let David know if you know anything about this thing!

"Here's something unusual. Just recently I unearthed a "concertina" the likes of which I've never seen. I'll describe it ...

Made by Lachenal, serial # 70000-odd, rosewood end (not ends), 7 3/4" across the flats. 12-fold bellows, green leather, usual white-with-gold-dots-and-crosses papers. One end is just a flat piece of wood, which looks like it would sit on a table or something.

The other end has three rows of buttons. The inner row of ten buttons in in the key of G, just like the inner row of an anglo with both hands' buttons all in the one row. The second row is in the key of C, ten buttons, just like both hands of an anglo put together. The third row, eight buttons, has the usual Lachenal sharps and flats, just as if they were on a 28-key anglo.

The end with the buttons has the normal Lachenal handstrap and air button. The air button is not the usual lever arrangement, but terminates in a rod running parallel to the long axis of the instrument, which presses directly onto a spring-loaded trapdoor.

The reed pan is radially arranged, similar to a 30-key anglo, but considerably bigger, since it has to hold 56 reeds.

It's a bit like a giant anglo-chromatic designed for an amputee!

Have you ever heard of the likes???"

"Looking at it, I seem to remember either not hearing about the strap on the plain end, or if I did, thinking that it was a lot longer than it is. I would say that this instrument is for someone who lost a hand, probably during the war. That strap is of the right size and spacing for the wrist to be placed under it, to allow control of the instrument. I would suspect that it was a special order, for someone who played the anglo prior to the loss of the hand."