Alfred C Dobbs

This site gets alot of traffic and I thought it may be a good location for a database where concertina owners, using their "account user name(s)", could list their instrument(s) with the accompanying serial number(s) and any other identifying specifics i.e.: color, style, bellow folds, blemishes etc.. Such a database will not prevent loss (or theft), however, it at least could help in tracking down the true owners (on a Global scale) of missing concertinas. This could be of significant help when "suspicous" item turn up for sale in all the usual places.

Oops, I meant to write "key", not "pitch" !

I was fortunate to get a well maintained 20 button rosewood, green bellow, steel reed, C/G Lachenal from a seller through e-bay. It is a great starter instrument and I will keep it in my collection. I noticed what may be a good Lachenal starter instrument on e-bay now, item: "2560861076" (3 days left to go). It may be worth a "look see" (I have NO connection with the seller) and would be, I believe, a better instrument to start on than one of those Italian-Chinese "flowery-red" things. The "caveat" with the previously mentioned Lachenal is that it is in G/D; I am not sure if it can be re-tuned to some other pitch.

Television (and radio) help to starve the "Concertina Culture". South Africa had a thriving concertina culture up untill the early 1980's which is about the same time they got television. I think that the diminished social interaction brought about by global popular mass media (included in this, a change in music taste) is a, if not thee, primary factor.