wes williams

Thanks Geoff, we'll wait in anticipation for your new stuff. Check out Geoff's great recent CD via the link on the Duet page. Thanks Malcolm - All the tracks will be of interest, so I'll link them in the next update

Mike, Instruments by other makers that have been repaired by Crabbs often have this stamp inside - I have a Wheatstone Duet with Crabb stamps inside. Maybe that's what happened with yours?

Dowright would have dated this as c.1909 in his latest estimates.

Exactly my thoughts, Geoff - maybe it was used for a novelty concertina act?

Thanks Richard! I'll go along with everything Stephen has said. Dowright's estimate would be late 1885, but it seems that his estimates are coloured in this date region by another Baritone Anglo (92220) with a plaque inscribed with a name and '1887'. But I now have a copy of Dowright's latest database, and your instrument is already on it, but without mention of the inscription. I'll update your instrument, and try to tweak the estimates to fit a bit better.

Circa 1898. Its not in our database. so some more details would help (number of buttons,etc)

I don't think you should interpret the numbers on Stephen's list as 'model' numbers, just an attempt to list most of the model variations known as simply as possible. If you look at that price list again you'll find that all the basic models were supplied with bone buttons, but solid Nickel Buttons (sometimes called German Silver) are available as an option on 'Newly Improved' types ( 'Newly Improved' being a phrase Lachenal used from the beginning of anglo production circa 1863). The Special Model anglo has nickel buttons as standard and the New Model Anglo is supplied with 'Silver Tipped' buttons where only the visible ends are metal. But of course, we should remember that Lachenal were always willing to supply instruments to variations in customer requirements.

I've recently done some research on the original Lachenal owners after Elizabeth Lachenal passed the firm on, and found that the transcriptions on anc*stry are often total rubbish, which makes many searches near impossible. More reliable transcriptions are on www.familysearch.org, and the transcriptions give the census references so you can check out the original census returns with a bit of difficulty. Without checking back through the contributions on this thread, all the familysearch hits give Tidder as associated with Mile End (or near) from birth to death. And in answer to one of your earlier queries (although you probably know by now) people can appear twice (perhaps even more) in electoral registers - the Lachenal Little James Street property is described as a 'joint tenement' listing three of the remaining Lachenal owners who lived at other addresses in London in the late 1880s/ early 1890s.

Most of us concertina nerds here are aware of these Wheatstone ledgers, which have been available for almost 20 years. The pre-1900 ledgers have serial numbers by sale date, but they can be searched by using the lookup here . Some of the ledgers (~1891-1910) have been lost, but the ledgers starting from 1910 are in serial number order, see here for the full collection. So your question was pretty easy to answer!

It's in the Wheatstone Ledgers as 23rd December 1913, see here .

Hi Paul, Your concertina is what we here would call a '20 key Anglo' as one button operates an air valve. But that means that the only way you can be certain of the number is by opening it up at one end and checking the number on the inside. We've found in many cases that the number visible from the outside has a preceding '1' which is hidden behind the fretwork.

Hi Keith, Unfortunately the number you give would be estimated to be c.1886, which is 10-15 years too late to be a Louis or Elizabeth Lachenal. We'd expect Lachenal & Co without the trademark to be about 50,00 or less and Lachenals made by Louis or Elizabeth to be about 25,000 or less.

Tracy - Don't assume I'm against this because my reply wasn't peppered with Emojis 😁. The ICA were documenting (and celebrating) that they were founded in 1953 from at least 1984, until the correct date was established around 20 years ago, so Colin won't take a little reminder about another important 2022 concertina anniversary wrongly.

Assuming Bumbling Boris & Co don't find a way of stopping it? And what about the 70 year anniversary of the foundation of the ICA in July/August of 2022?

Based on previous replies by Dowright (33598 ~1896, 36733 ~1898), 34122 would be circa 1897. The English system series maximum seems to be a bit above 60,000.