wes williams

Fred Gaisberg, Chief Recording Expert for The Gramophone Company/HMV, wrote in his autobiography about recording Peter Nevsky, a popular entertainer with his 'concertina', in St Petersburg, Russia in 1901. Although you might assume that Fred would know what a concertina was, as opposed to an accordion, after his early associations with Percy Honri, the autobiography was written in 1943 when Fred's memory wasn't as sharp as it had been, and in the second video you'll see a miniature accordion which might easily be mistaken for a concertina. Here is a recording of Nevsky, which will be interesting to free-reed folk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZyJwUT8Zw There's also a video in Russian about an accordion museum in Moscow that gives lots of information about Nevsky and his instruments from about 11 minutes onwards.

Chris Flint also did some research on the Chidley family more recently than most of the earlier posts and has some related pictures. This can be found at at Joseph Scates Concertinas

Here's Jack with 'His Wonderful Family of Concertinas' circa 1915. Six Maccanns? and a miniature.

That isn't a good example of how to tune a reed. Most folks here would support the reed by placing a shim of some kind (eg old style double sided razor blade or feeler gauge) between the shoe and the reed unfixed end when filing. That way filing is much more precise and the file need never touch the shoe.

Since my name appears prominently in the first link above, the page directed to (written ~2008 and no longer in existence here) would have given you a date about 1919. But the best current estimate would be from member Dowright who suggested 1910 for No 2700 (here) and ~1923 for No. 4062 (here). So you probably need to add 10 years or more to your 1906 estimate.

I expect most of you know, but Ankh-Morpork was an invention of Sir Terry Pratchett. In 2002 Wincanton in Somerset, UK was officially twinned with Ankh-Morpork. There is a shop there called Discworld Emporium . One house further up from the shop used to have a melodeon displayed in its front windows, so I wonder if there was any connection between that and the SteveS original thread post.

Somerset people have always been a bit free about their spellings Wolf

Mr. J A Travers mentioned in the first post, was a dealer and repairer who had been in the business for a long time, and knew many of the early players. He wrote articles which appeared in Accordion Review, and gave a lot of encouragement to new players, including the late Reuben Shaw. He was prominent in the founding of the ICA, but unfortunately died just before the ICA was actually formed. There are letters in the ICA Archive between him and Reuben Shaw and Jack Clevoner. I've had no luck tracking down any local knowledge of him, but his business was based in Bridgewater, Somerset - formerly at 25 Taunton Rd, it was at 7 West Street by December 1949. So the "Castle House, Enmore, Near Bridgwater" address is 1950/1.

Perhaps it's just the North? When I visited Hessen (based in Felsberg, near Kassel) 30+ years ago there was plenty of 'tradition' still alive in the region.

Not quite the same thing - Neil Wayne had been collecting concertinas and related things for a while before I first got in touch with him in 1970. His collection was eventually sold in 1996, and purchased by the Horniman Museum, in London, which is the link Bill Crossland gave above. But could he keep away from concertinas? The answer was a resounding NO! He continued to collect concertinas and related things and about 10 years ago decided to catalogue his 'new' collection on-line, with lots of hi-res photos of 'exploded' instruments, which is the link in the Myrtle's Cook post quoted here. That 'new' collection is privately housed in Derbyshire. So if you want to visit a public museum with lots of free-reed stuff its the Horniman in London, which also has an on-site library with lots of concertina related documents. End of thread creep! Sorry Geoff!

Are you sure these are Wheatstone made 'English system' instruments? Their numbers only went up to around 37,000. The numbers suggest they are Lachenal made instruments, and if so (and are English system) would date circa 1923. A photo would help us if possible.

It suggests a Lachenal made in the early/mid 1870s. Dowright is the man to give you a better date, so check through his dates on the large "Dates for Lachenal numbers" threads.

Thanks Dowright, I replied to that earlier posting, pointing out that it was the reverse - two separate series then one joint one. I've previously thought that the joint series commenced slightly later, but your research detailed here gives very good reasons why 1910 is the logical start for the joint series. Many thanks for your years of work on Lachenal serials!

I've just added two tracks of Gavin Atkin playing a 52-button Jeffries duet in C, with Julie Atkin singing to the Duet Recordings page. The tracks are Autumn Leaves and Teddy Bear's Picnic .