wes williams

Hi Peter, We can't answer you without further details - see the kind of details the previous enquirers have added. With a number that high its almost certain to be an anglo concertina, but its value will depend on many factors like the number of buttons, metal or wooden ends, condition etc. And its also worth checking carefully that there isn't a 1 before the number you gave, as this has been often been found to be hiding just behind the fretwork, which means you need to take off one of the ends and find the number inside to be sure. Simple enough - just carefully unscrew the six end bolts, on

Looks pretty much the same as my own Lachenal anglo, with the metal ends going into a rebate. But if we look at your last photo on ebay with zoom-in you can see the lever action - a pressed pivot with a pressed arm passing through its slot and held in place by the spring. That's pretty much standard for a Lachenal action.

Just a little postscript - I've recently discovered that James A Travers of Bridgewater (or Bridgwater for Wolf) Somerset, the concertina dealer mentioned, died in Oct-Dec 1952 in the Taunton District aged 62. That has taken me close on 20 years to discover. I knew it was sometime around then as the ICA had just formed when he died. Info via Free BMD I don't know why, but discovery of a person's first name seems to make them more real to me. Here he is circa 1950 :-

Thanks for that Colin, here's wishing you best of luck for the future for both the website and sound archive! Feel free to grab any vintage mp3 recordings from my website (similar software used to Izotope RX) or message me if you want anything there in archival wav format.

I've sent you a PM with my home email so we can try to sort things out. I ran the website for around 5 years before Michel took over, so these missing files could have been what I added, and Michel removed to free up space. During that time I got the ICA committee to agree to making Newsletters over about 20-25 years old publicly available, along with a copy of a recent Newsletter, as part of the encouragement to join the ICA. But the current situation with Newsletters available "online in PDF readable format, but not downloadable or printable" is not useful for serious research un

I made PDF copies of many ICA magazines in the Horniman Museum Library, donations from other members and my own collection up to issue 400 of Sept 1995 (~200 issues) back around 2004, and lodged them in the ICA Archive. There are still some at the Horniman that I didn't find time to do, their collection ranging from issue 136 (with gaps) upwards . Research at that time suggested that Frank Butler (an early ICA secretary) had most of the earlier issues, and had donated them to one of the National institutions in Scotland (National Library or National Archive). Health problems preve

The formula came from Geoff Wooff (still a member here) a long time ago (~35 years!) that was published in a concertina magazine. It was based on what little we knew at the time. Around 20 years ago - so 15 years later - I updated it and the link for that article is above - which gave you a date about 1901. Today we rely on member Dowright who has been collecting numbers and relevant information for 30+ years. So 1889 is as near as we can be after 40 years of research.

I was replying with the same as Geoff - he just beat me

... and also The Firth Brothers from 1967 (who? - find them and listen!) In the vintage recordings there are also two new Alexander Prince 78rpms - one from 1904 and one from 1927 - thanks to two 78rpm collectors.

Jake - If you have his phone number you could get the area where he lives from the prefix code, and might find someone here who lives near.

That was recorded about 1984, but if you see the 1979 Roman Polanski film version of 'Tess of the Durbervilles', John is also leading the procession at the beginning. John kindly gave me a box of his videos after he had them converted to DVDs. I must do the same sometime soon!

Sometimes concertinas appear in the sales ledgers more than once. Assuming there were no errors in the numbers written, your concertina was sold to Hammond & Son (so a dealer?) in June 1852 as part of a batch of four. We have no records for concertinas re-purchased by Wheatstone (sometimes in part exchange for a better model), but the 1853 sales ledger shows it was sold again to Joseph Scates as part of a batch of twelve in 1853. Scates was a maker and dealer who had gone into business on his own account about 1845, being formerly a tuner for Wheatstone. However he sold his business to Ge

Its worth remembering that Bob Gaskin's Concertina.com site has a lookup for Wheatstone numbers : http://www.concertina.com/ledgers/lookup/index.htm That tells you that 4950 also appears in Ledger C1048 page 60 (October 1853) where its in a batch sold to Joseph Scates (maker and dealer), so you've got a little more of its history.

To move things on, nobody has yet commented that Regondi's early concerts in Germany were reported as him playing the melophone rather than the concertina.

Thanks Peter - I've just got around to listening to it. 2019 - new hall? But where's the dog?