Paul Gleeson

Thanks, I will alter post.

For a government document this one sets out the situation for importing to the UK relatively clearly Notice 143: a guide for international post users - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). For someone resident in the UK receiving a concertina from abroad worth over £135. They will have to pay VAT at 20%, though if you have bought the item, many countries have schemes whereby you should not have to pay their local sales tax. There may also be import duty due. There are internationally used codes to identify items for the purposes of duty. 9205 90 10 Accordions and other similar instruments. In this case the duty is 2%, Concertinas over 100 years old can be classed as 9706 00 00 Antiques of an age exceeding 100 years and they are free of duty. One thing to watch is the VAT is not only charged on the value of the goods, but also on the duty, insurance and postage and packing. The only real change is these charges now apply to EU. For people buying from the UK. If the seller is VAT register there is a scheme where they can sell free of VAT Exports, sending goods abroad and charging VAT - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The EU an USA treat antiques the same as the UK so there is no duty payable. In the EU you will have to pay the local applicable VAT. You can look up commodity codes here The Online Trade Tariff: Look up commodity codes, import duty, VAT and controls - GOV.UK (trade-tariff.service.gov.uk) you can also find the UK rate of duty. You can also find the commodity codes and EU rates of duty here. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2020:361:FULL&from=EN Note they us a comma instead of a decimal point in the % duty rate.

The Irish Tradiotional Music Archive is continuing its Drawing from the Well series of videos into 2021. The next 3 films feature concertina players. Feb 3 Radie Peat Feb 17 Cormac Begley Mar 17 Caitlin Nic Gabhann Info can be found here Drawing from the Well 2021 | ITMA A promo for the first film here

At 9:30 pm (GMT) on Sunday 31st January on TG4 (www.tg4.ie) there is a concert of Irish music featuring a "powerful line-up of women in the tradition", including concertina player Caitlin Nic Gabhann. As I understand it you can watch it online or on TG4's Facebook pages. I thought ITM players may be interested. A trailer can be found here (41) Ceol ó Kylemore: Ceiliúradh na mBan Dé Domhnaigh 31/01 - YouTube

The I.T.M.A. is proposing to publish the tunes from the Forde collection next year. The tunes were collected during the Great Famine and were never published. I though ITM players might be interested in this video.

During lockdown RTÉ radio's Rolling Wave programme, with the Irish Traditional Music Archive, commissioned 10 composers to write new tunes on whatever instruments they had in their homes. Amongst the 10 was Edel Fox who wrote two lovely tunes, and recorded them on the concertina. The recordings and transcription of the tunes can be found here, with all the other compositions. I thought it might be of interest to ITM players. https://www.itma.ie/blog/faoiseamh

The fretwork is the same as on my Stagi A48 English concertina. Accordion reeds.

I noticed this has been listed by a hospice on Ebay Uk not too sure how common they are https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-English-21-Key-System-CONCERTINA-Hand-Accordian-C-WHEATSTONE-232/164428615954?hash=item2648b59112:g:-MYAAOSw0cdffdWq

On Ebay at the moment is a 36 key Lachenal Anglo for sale, one of the photos is the receipt for it being restored by C Wheatsone & Co in 2008 and one of the items is for re-tonguing some reeds, so they might be able to help? I am awaiting 3 replacement reeds from Mark for my Rock Chidley EC.