Richard Mellish

Fair enough, but still the first I'd heard of it, and no good for those of us who decline to register on Facebook.

It says "This group is private", which seems odd for someone wishing to sell something.

My Bb/F baritone, which was made for me by the Dippers in 2009, cost me then just under £4000. It is 40-key, slightly modified Wheatstone layout. Reduce that figure somewhat if you only want 30-key, then add on a lot for inflation. I don't know if any of the makers of hybrids do or could offer a Bb/F baritone, but it seems worth asking all of them. And you could ask all the dealers what sort of price they would want if and when they get hold of one.

I'm not clear now about the exact symptom. If you push or pull the bellows (gently) without pressing any button, does one note sound? Or does it only sound when you press the button for one of the other notes, so that you hear both?

Yes indeed, thanks for mentioning a possibility that I was forgetting. If Sandra's pads all look OK, that could be the explanation. I understand how that can happen with a concertina of traditional construction but my understanding of hybrids is minimal.

If there's a drone effect that's not from leaking valves. The valves are there to prevent air being wasted by going through the reed that isn't sounding. If a note that you're not playing is sounding, that must be because it's pad is not closing completely over the hole. That in turn could be due to any of several causes.

I started on a 20-button cheap and cheerful East German concertina. Very soon I was offered a 30-button Lachenal, which was a moderate-quality instrument but had had some bad leaks stuffed with toilet paper. I replaced those bodges with somewhat less nasty bodges. I briefly had a 26-button box (the make of which I have forgotten) then a 30. Eventually, when I had a concertina built for me (by Steve Dickinson, who now owns the Wheatstone brand), he suggested a 40-button, on the basis that if you don't use all of them that's no big deal, but if you have 30 and wish you had more you're stuck. I accepted that reasoning. The downside of playing a 40-button concertina was that I became accustomed to using some of the extra buttons a lot. Consequently, if I now pick up a 30-button box I am frustrated by missing those extras. Consequently all the additional concertinas that I have bought over the years have also been Wheatstone-layout 40s, apart from one that I bought as an interesting curiosity. They say that what you've never had you don't miss, but having had those extra buttons I certainly do miss them if I pick up a concertina without them (or indeed a Jeffries-layout one with 38 buttons, which has less than 30 the same as on a Wheatstone). Unlike some players I don't go far away from the two basic keys on a given concertina: to play a tune in a different key I switch to a different instrument, but I do make much use of alternative buttons, to play notes in the opposite bellows direction from usual. What does all this mean for a beginner? Sandra has already experienced the benefit of moving to a better-quality instrument, and further improvements in that direction are possible, independently of the number of buttons. She already expects to upgrade to a 30-button in due course. I would suggest, if possible, getting her hands on one fairly soon to start feeling her way around it, to confirm whether that is indeed what she wants and how urgently. Then maybe after a few years a trial run on a 40 (or, if the 30-button is Jeffries-layout, a 38). But beware of getting trapped, as I did, into needing those extra buttons.

I agree with Geoff. I have justified (to myself, no-one else to please) some of my purchases at least partly as investments. If in my dotage I need additional funds to pay for care I can sell them. Meanwhile I do play some of them. Some years ago, not long after I bought a lovely Wheatstone 40-key C-G, a Koot Brits 40-key C-G came on the market and I bought that as well, thinking I would then sell one or the other. The Wheatstone is a much better instrument but I was glad to have the Koot Brits when the Wheatstone was away for a service. So far I have kept both.

Also which country you're in.

Let's try to resolve the confusion. I'll try to avoid the terms "harmonic" and "overtone" because those may or may not mean the same thing. And I stand open to correction from anyone with deeper knowledge of the physics. Many oscillating systems have multiple possible modes of vibration, with different frequencies. With a taut string, the mode with two antinodes and a note in the middle will have approximately twice the frequency - but possibly not exactly because of complexities at the ends, limited suppleness of the string, etc. A violin player (more rarely a fiddler) can excite that mode by touching the string in the middle, damping any movement at that point. With normal playing, several modes will be excited at once. In that case, I am not sure whether interaction between them affects their freqencies enough to lock the higher ones to exact multiples of the fundamental. Anyone know? A free reed is a very different animal. As has been said up thread, its higher modes of vibration will not be at exact multiples of the fundamental frequency. However almost all the sound that comes out of the instrument is produced by the fluctuating air flow past the reed. Each time the reed makes one movement there and back there will be one cycle of the sound wave. The air flow does not vary sinusoidally, so the sound will include harmonics of the fundamental frequency, but they will be integral multiples, with two, three or however many cycles for each there and back movement of the reed. Even if the movement of the reed includes any of its higher frequencies and those contribute non-harmonic components to the air flow, the resulting contribution to the sound is likely to be very quiet and un-noticeable.

That one has either led a very very sheltered life or had an excellent refurbishment. It could pass for brand new.

Price? Or are you looking for offers?

I discovered Captain Tolley's through a post on an internet forum. I don't remember whether it was this forum or some other one. It gets into cracks by capillary action and works well for sealing them to stop water (or whatever) getting through, but I don't know how effective it would be for preventing relative movement.

On the first Sunday of August (6th) some of the regulars for the lunchtime English music session in London will be in Sidmouth but the session is expected to go ahead anyway. It's at The King's Arms, 65 Newcomen Street, London, SE1 1YT from 12 noon to 3pm. What system do you play? If you don't manage to bring your instrument one of us might be able to lend you one for a few hours. (MIGHT, no promises!)

Thanks for the nickname info, which was new to me. The OP's best bet would seem to be to get a C/G, of which there are plenty at all prices and qualities, and have it retuned a semitone up.

I hoped someone else would respond by now, but as no-one has I will. I can't make sense of your requested keys. Do you want the basic keys to be C# and G# or do you want one of them to be E flat? You'll have to go a long way to find a concertina with basic keys of C# and G#, but if you do find one it will have some D#s on both push and pull, as those would correspond to Ds on an ordinary C-G. Unless you also require non-equal-temperament tuning which makes D# different from E flat, you will have some E flat notes. If on the other hand you mean that you want one offering the key of E flat as one of its basic keys, that's going to be equally hard to find.

I have a metal case with perished foam lining which would need to be removed and replaced with something better. If that would be any use you're welcome to it for the cost of postage (from Britain).

Following the explanations of 7mount, and to clarify my own post, I do not have one of those, so cannot offer one to try, but I do have Anglos of several other makes, which Irina (or anyone passing through London) is welcome to try.

If you pass through London on your way to or from Shetland you can try mine. (But I don't know what 7mount means.)

Both the strap and the label look new. Has it been in its case for most of its life or does someone reproduce Lachenal straps?

Please post some pictures too.

I am pleased to have found this forum but I have already forgotten how I found it.

Is it not possible to run it off both phases in the US? If not, why not get a transformer?

In at least one place in one tune where the first note of a phrase is the same as the last note of the previous phrase, I play one phrase on pull then change to push with the repeated note on a different button.

Looks like I need to put it back together so I can (a) confirm that it does actually work, and if so (b) post a picture on here. I have a fair amount of experience with discrete components (going back to valves!) and small-scale integration, and at the software end with BBC BASIC, but very little in between, hence my choice of an off-the-shelf MIDI interface rather than a Raspberry Pi or the like. The rest then followed from that. Your plan is an illustration of there being more than one way to skin the proverbial.