wes williams

Thanks for your replies folks. I finally got to page 2 a few hours after posting, so whatever it was it cleared up in the late evening. I've now managed to find reports of over 50 Case instruments here and on the net, so hope to write something a bit more detailed for the history forum.

I'm currently trying to search for any "George Case" concertinas reported to the site. I managed to get the first page up (of about 8 pages / 184 items) and went through it (quite a few minutes). But when I tried to get to the second page I got a message about a problem and waiting a certain number of seconds before making another search. I used my browser back button to get back to the first page, tried to get to the second page a couple times and just got the same message with an ever increasing wait time. I've not had any success getting beyond the first page. I realise that this is probably an anti-hacking measure, but what am doing wrong, or is there any way I can get to page 2 etc ?

Dawkins is listed at 17 Charterhouse St, Holborn in an 1882 Post Office directory, so your instrument may not be the type Dave has assumed above. The number of buttons on it might give us a clue, as different types have different series of numbers.

Its probably worth bringing this thread up to date, so more recent additions on the Chidleys can be found at Chris Flint's Joseph Scates Concertinas site.

The current estimates for 12112 is 1869, and for 164895 is 1899.

Dowright sent me this observation on the change between Louis Lachenal and Lachenal & Co: No 19070 is the first English for which we have a Lachenal & Co. label. But No. 22717 is the highest one for which we have a Louis Lachenal label. Clearly, Lachenal & Co. owners had a stock of leftover Louis Lachenal circular pan labels. In some cases, they cut the "Louis Lachenal" off of the pan label (for example, No. 21644), but it was not cut off on others.

Dawkins was at 6, 7, 8 Little Warner St from the mid 1860s and had left by 1882, so the 5 digit number could be correct and would date to circa 1876.

Maccann 1335 was reported to the Lachenal Project by Barleycorn Concertinas, with a similar description of '2 long sides' sometime in the last 30 years, so there's a bit of more recent history.

circa 1895. It's 140043 and the apparent 'L' on the paper serial number is caused by cutting and slight damage.

I've recently been going through Randy Merris's archive and came across a couple of things that might be of interest. If you look at the Lachenal Pricelists on concertina.com, item 4 on the date attribution list shows the telephone exchange going from Museum to Holborn, although no date of the change is given. We can now narrow that down to between July 1928 and November 1929, as shown from the receipts below. July 1928 Receipt November 1929 Receipt I only know of one other price list which is circa 1912 and comes from Neil Wayne's Concertina Museum site (where 3 pages are shown). But you can download the full pricelist here. If anybody knows of any other Lachenal price lists, I'd love to hear about them. The other thing is the introduction of the 'New Model'. Stephen Chamber's Lachenal Part 2 article has 28320:New Model, probably made about 1888 (CMC 106) . The database has 25521 as the earliest recorded New Model English. This would date to 1883/4 so perhaps this model was introduced to mark the 10th anniversary of the foundation of Lachenal & Co?

Thanks Robert, ... And for Barbara with concertina from Chris Algar's collection...

I suspect Randall Merris has already done this - although that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. Randy has copies of two Ballinger photos (Richard, as mentioned in Geoff's article and George Arthur, who was working for Lachenal by 1911), and one of Frederick Robert Saunders (also in Geoff's article). The copies of the photos were made over a decade ago, and there may be even more when I search his archive more fully. Geoff Crabb and I have already exchanged emails, as Randy and I have written an article covering the same material (well, 98% Randy, 2% me) which goes a bit deeper and should emerge on the Concertina Journal website sometime soon. Great minds thinking alike? But congratulations to Geoff on a superb bit of research!!

Hi Kristjan Your photos show a 48 key Rosewood ended English system with a Louis Lachenal label and serial number 8169. The bone buttons are coloured black for the outer accidental rows, with the C buttons in red and with the note names stamped on the inner rows. It appears to have a wooden sub-fret baffle. Dowright would have estimated this as circa 1861. Giving a value is always difficult as we don't know how much work would be required to get it back to playing condition, but with this age I'd suggest it would probably need a full retune at minimum.

c. 1904

c.1881