wes williams

A Lachenal made Maccann Duet system, produced circa 1896. All the dates we give are estimates based on 30 years work by Randall Merris, as there are no records. Duets use a different serial number range to all the other concertina types. As you are new here, I gave you some extra Maccann Duet system info as you'd said it was an anglo and thought it was around 1873.

This is a Maccann Duet - a button should play the same note in both bellows direction (assuming its in tune). Anglos play a different note in and out. The Maccann Duet was invented in 1880, patented in 1884, and it was made circa 1896.

Les - I've copied some of your text to the 'Dating A Lachenal' thread, to keep things in one place. We'd estimate 7381 as circa 1861. We only have perhaps 3 32K out of 2700+. The other 2 are the 5921 and 6921 so perhaps one was a misreport!

Les Jessop posted : I recently bought Lachenal 7381 at a local auction. Going by the 2004 article by Stephen Chambers about the history of Lachenal, I think it dates from the early years of the firm, 1858-1861. A similar 32-button instrument (Lachenal 6599) is illustrated in the article. I'm attaching a few photographs and would welcome comments. We'd estimate this as circa 1861.

25023 Lachenal Excelsior English - c. 1883 29815 Lachenal - Keith Prowse label English - c. 1891 39807 Lachenal Inimitable English - c. 1901

Thanks Alex, John - Peter Green's email was peterbgreen@gmail.com . Did you try that?

Thanks for the mention Alex. I wrote something amost 25 years ago that you can access at archive.org, but give it a little time to find it. It's a bit inaccurate as I wasn't aware that cents were logarithmic, not linear, but it gives you an idea of pitches pre 1930. It sounds like the concertina in question is a Bb/Eb in an old pitch. The Salvation Army used A=452.4 Hz until 1964 for all brass (see here) so perhaps that's a clue to its heritage.

We'd estimate this 31502 English as c.1893.

It looks like Lachenal made this, either for Wheatstone or for his own firm after he started. The main question here is which firm. If it was Wheatstone, near numbers suggest 1856, or if Lachenal then c.1862. So we have a fairly good idea on date, unless any of the experts can determine something different.

The 21xxx number suggests something made c.1890-1895, for which there are no records. We know that Edward Chidley Senior's Wheatstone models were made with riveted reeds from c.1865 and a return to screwed reeds occurred sometime around or after his death in 1899. Fuller details are here.

+1 Exactly what Steve S says above re Dave's book. You'll find the serial numbers inside, which will allow us to give you date estimate.

The number of keys (buttons) might be important if you choose a duet. A 46 button Maccann has 6 buttons which are duplicated on both sides, so it can only play 40 notes, and if you are hoping to play accompaniment on left, and melody on right, you soon find that many 'musical keys' aren't really feasible.

This deserves to be bumped up again 12 years later. Every time I've seen Noel, his playing seems to get faster, so this at near normal speed is a refresher.

Its a 46 key Maccann Duet, estimated as circa 1923. The same layout as my first concertina purchase nearly 55 years ago, and I still have it.

We'd estimate 189997 as circa 1914. It will be a 22 button anglo system concertina.