wes williams

Thanks Sionainn - The twins are doing well, and although almost identical, one has a tiny mole by his right eye, so we know which is which. Circa 1898 would be our estimate for #160867. For questions on CITES it would probably be better to start a new thread, or ask on an existing CITES one, as your question will become buried in this thread.

Thanks Dave, I may be a little tardy in replies for a while, as identical twin grandsons arrived last week 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 and we are helping out with their older sister and brother.

It might have been Ivor Hyde back then ?

Hi Robin, The action suggests that it was built by Lachenal, but might have been supplied to Wheatstone, or sold directly by Lachenals (see Chris Flint's action survey here ). Our estimate for #13106 of circa 1867 for a Lachenal, or circa 1865 if it was Wheatstone, doesn't help. But we do have Metzler badged Lachenal English over a wide range of numbers from #9286 (including #13499) to #25833 (street numbers change to 40s here) when Metzler was buying direct from Lachenal.

There are 53 Metzler labelled concertinas in our Lachenal Project database, both Anglo and English. The address on the label was active 1858 to 1883. If it is a Lachenal we would estimate it as circa 1867. Metzler changed address to 40-43 Great Marlborough St in 1884.

Hi Jill, Your concertina is a Crane system, 48 bone button, with rosewood ends and we would estimate it to have been made circa 1924. Lachenal closed in 1933. I've answered your message to me with a few more details.

We would currently estimate an English 56585 as circa 1917.

The number is from the duet range, and suggests that it might be a Maccann, as there are no reports of Cranes in this number region . Lachenal made both Crane and Maccann systems with 55 keys (+ 1 air).

We would estimate 177207 as circa 1905.

If you want to sell, you could always try the Buy & Sell forum here for some honest offers. Remember that most of the sites you'll find selling concertinas are fully restored items, so their price reflects the work needed to bring them up to standard.

Hi Nick, Gary's reply above more or less nails your instrument as a Crane & Sons Crane/Butterworth system concertina. Dating of these instruments is very speculative as we don't have many reports (~185) but currently we estimate #460 as 1904 and Gary's #55 as 1898. Crane's patent expired around 1910 and the Salvation Army took up the system in 1912. The Lachenal crane series numbers went up to around 1050, and when the SA took over the serials in the existing Maccann series were used. AFAIK nobody has published anything on C&S numbers and their related Lachenal serials, but it would be an interesting thing to study 🙂

You're welcome Nigel. But please post things like this to the Dating A Lachenal From The Serial Number thread in future, as it keeps everything together.

We'd estimate 192151 as circa 1874. Please post things like this to the Dating A Lachenal From The Serial Number thread in future, as it keeps everything together.

Alex - 201002 is estimated as circa 1930.

The estimate for 18198 is circa 1873.

Martyn - We'd estimate it as circa 1920, Lachenal closed down in 1933.

Lachenal introduced casein (plastic) buttons about 1928 . But check the number elsewhere on the instrument, as the range goes up to just over 200,000 and a preceding '1' on the end label can be hidden.

Gregor, We would estimate 76924 as circa 1883.

John, We don't have any Lachenals with a number that high, they only seem to go up to around 201500. More details and some photos please.

Hi Paul, Wrong thread? But to save you reposting dowright's estimate would have been circa 1922.

Model 20 - Baritone Aeola (see this price list). July 22nd 1926. See this page of the Wheatstone Ledgers at the Horniman Museum.

We would estimate 88626 as circa 1886.

Perhaps you could consider putting it on the Buy & Sell forum?

The highest number so far reported for an English system (ignoring one stamping mistake) is around 60,500 so I'd suggest that the first digit is 5. The second digit looks like a 2 to me (sorry Dave!). If its 52xxx we'd estimate it was made circa 1911, so would probably have steel reeds.

Most of the dates I circulated were produced a couple of years ago and were based on what Randy had passed on to me as his last estimates, so a few serious researchers had a guide to what Randy would have replied. Would you have had me keep silent and kept the ability to respond to this thread to myself alone? 'Your own tweaking' - as you put it - was to simply show that more work was needed, and in one case I simply changed all the anglo estimates by a fixed percentage so the maximum serial fitted better, and the other was based on a more recent date/number report. Both these 'tweaks' were 'what if?' suggestions, which I thought I'd made clear. That's why I always reply with 'circa year' dates, and don't try to interpolate any further. But in the case you are talking of here, there was an entry only around a few months different - which I hadn't noticed before - which showed that more work is needed in this particular date area. The fact that Randy's estimates provide us an good approximate year of manufacture, when almost nothing was known earlier, demonstrates that we aren't too far from the truth. Verifiable date/number reports are rare!