wes williams

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 .

I've added real names for Jeff and Didie - you may need to refresh your browser to see changes. Just to clarify Al's earlier comment - many items are downloadable, but some (e.g. Soundcloud) are listen only.

It is no problem to extract the audio from video recordings. Let me know which recordings you would like posted.

Unfortunately Al's CD arrived just as I was leaving for 2 weeks holiday in Italy. I got back yesterday so I'll set to work on it ASAP. The CD was formatted as a single track (46 minutes long) so needs to be split into individual tracks. I also have a tape that Jim Harvey (Maurice's Dad) distributed around the ICA (courtesy of Malcolm Clapp). It doesn't have any track listings, so will be worth comparing with Al's CD tracks. I think many tracks on that tape are of 'concerted' playing at ICA meetings. If anyone needs to convert older format recordings, I have various 'old' bits of equipment (reel to reel, Minidisc, cassette, etc) that I can use to to make CDs or MP3s at no cost other than postage. I can also try to improve the quality of many older recordings.

Other way around, Jim. Both Dowright and I came to the same conclusion independently a few years ago - Crane and Maccann Duets started with separate sequences and joined up later, sometime around the First World War.

My website has recently had another 23 sides of concertina recordings (and one of Alf Edwards playing ocarina!) from 78rpm records added to the 'Various Players' page (ie all except Alexander Prince) including two from Professor Maccann himself recorded in 1900 thanks to Peter Adamson. Norman Field has also contributed three early sides from Steve Bartle, the English system player. I have many more Alexander Prince (Maccann) recordings to add. Feel free to download and create your own 'pick and mix' CDs!

'The Repair Shop' programme on the Beeb recently featured the restoration of a c.1890s Jeffries 38 key anglo by Roger Thomas, with the case restoration by Suzie Fletcher. You've got just under two weeks to watch it on iplayer here.

Except the concertina shown looks like a 'cheap' German made model.