wes williams

It's not quite what I think you are asking for, but there are a couple of pictures of Lachenal glass buttons on an English C-289 in The Concertina Museum. If you click on 'Action Board' in the headings of the various parts, the images will appear on the right, and if you hover over them with your mouse, they will scroll up/down. Click on the image you want to view and it will be shown full size. Only 1% of the anglos reported to 'The Lachenal Project' have between 37 and 39 keys.

Wheatstone used a slightly different version of the Maccann layout, so I would start with The Chidley System on the site that David pointed you to and see if that helps.

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.

Boomerang! The picture originally came from the museum section on this site, posted by Tony Kell. And yes, No 3 is a miniature.

Today I saw a TV programme - 'Heir Hunters' Series 9 Episode 10 on More 4 about 'Reed and Delroy'. Their name rang a bell in connection with concertinas, so I watched it twice! Its streaming here but probably UK only. For those outside the UK the subtitles are available here . Both played concertina and accordion. Their real names were Arthur and Muriel (nee Marshall) Gill who had formed the act as teenagers, and married in 1952. Muriel (born 1929 in Rawtenstall, Lancashire) was known professionally as 'Rita Delroy' and had continued to perform after Arthur retired. They were based in Blackpool and appeared on bills for theatre shows there in the 1950s/60s, often to audiences up to of 6,000. Another name appears out the mists!

If the number is correct its probably a model 6A 40 key anglo in C-G made in late 1966 (see the Wheatstone ledgers and catalogue ). They normally came with wooden ends, but metal ends were optional.

Maybe not, as Don's earlier comments mention commercially available switches. I'm just pointing out that electronic instrument keyboards have been made for many decades using simple wire switches. Perhaps you can still buy this type of wire if you search for it, as I found it available ~20 years ago.

I suspect Dave was looking for 'Tidder' (Takayuki YAGI +1) which Stephen Chambers came up with around 2005 as the probable manufacturer for some unidentified instruments with large bellows gussets. Those threads are still in place. But pre-2003 concertina.net content can sometimes be found on The Wayback Machine

Brave man to try to use magnetics! All of the electronic musical keyboards (organs, synthesisers, etc)I've worked on use wire contacts (often gold plated) for switches. These have stood the test of time, and can be easily made and replaced rather like lever springs.

Just to be pedantic - zener diodes definitely aren't required, just plain ordinary diodes 😁

Thanks Stephen, Merry Garden appears to be in High Ham, a small village in the Langport district. Your mention of him as an Army Pensioner brings up something that has puzzled me. In the advert below from July 1950, he prominently features the abbreviation C.D.G which I thought might be 'Croix De Guerre' . Anybody have any ideas?