Eugenides

As someone who's been poking around that category myself, the thread for current makes of concertina is a good resource. There are a few in your range, for sure!

I'm very sad to hear about Paul, that's really terrible news! Regarding Geuns, please refer to this screenshot of an email exchange I had with them.

Appreciate that offer! I'm on the peninsula, so you're a bit far off, sadly.

I appreciate your offer! I'll send you a direct message presently.

Well, that's convenient, Barleycorn is the vendor I was talking to. Thank you so much for your input!

I appreciate the feedback. I do think you might be right, that I'm looking outside of the normal beginner range, for one reason or another. That being said, I'm not sure I can fix the needs I have. What I'm looking for is a well constructed instrument that I enjoy the sound of and don't find myself fighting it--I'll be fighting my own playing skill enough as it is! Since you explicitly have a couple of the instruments I'm looking at, in your opinion, what are the explicit strengths and weaknesses of each of those?

Alas, not really. I live in the rural PNW, I'm quite far from most major population centers, going would be an overnight trip usually. I've looked around and I don't see any people in my area that play. Costs of living in a sparsely populated area.

Dynamic range is an excellent point that I hadn't considered, I'll definitely add that to the list of things I consider!

Appreciate the feedback! I hadn't considered VAT, to be honest, I didn't really think most of the options were big enough to trip it. I guess I'd see it with a few of the larger businesses. The diminishing returns aspect is exactly what I'm looking for advice on, honestly. A lot of people on these forums talk about cheaper or poorly made instruments, I was hoping for more concrete details based on years of playing. Things you found that do or don't matter. Afraid your 4th point has lost me, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, there.

On a slightly related note, I'm slowly working my way through the intermediate list. Wolverton is discontinuing their standard model. Geuns says that they no longer make concertinas. I'll continue to update as I hear from other makers, if that won't be too annoying.

Hello, all. I've been scouring the forums for some time now looking at instruments and trying to figure out where I'd like to start. The consistent advice I see is to get the best instrument you can afford. My problem is that I feel like I'm in a range where it's very difficult to gauge what best is, because I'm willing to pick up something on the high end of the intermediate range. So I come to you, in the interest of garnering advice, based on anecdotes and experience. Options I'm looking at: 1. A vintage lachenal. Described as nothing fancy, but it's been gone over and plays well. Still waiting for more details from the vendor, but it's one of the cheaper options I've found. It sounds like a good option, I trust the vendor, but I'm not knowledgeable enough yet to know what an older but cheap lachenal might bring to the table. Advice for what to look out for much appreciated. 2. I'm very interested in the AP James intermediate concertinas. They honestly seem like a very good deal, but there's not much discussion about them. Technically the cheapest "good" option I've found, at 1200 GBP. Can anyone chime in about why these seem so much cheaper than competitors? They look beautiful and seem ridiculously cheap for what they offer. What's the catch? 3. If I wait patiently for a bit longer, I'd be able to afford something like a Marcus or a Harmon. These are on the upper end of pricing, and I'm not sure if it's actually worth spending that much more than some of the cheaper options to get one of these. On the other hand, this could be a one and done, no upgrade needed. Anyone who can chime in with things they have to say about these makes I would greatly appreciate. Especially would love constructive criticism. 4. Once you start factoring in things like a Harmon, you're in the range where you could consider buying a nicer vintage instrument that's used and maybe not as ornamented as the top of the line ones. But at this point you're moving into more than doubling some of the other options I'm considering. Is this just too far down the slippery slope? Is this actually a better option than a nicely made hybrid? I'm particularly interested in being talked into or out of just getting a pretty nice instrument and not needing to deal with the quirks of a student or poorer quality instrument. Because once you're spending $1800, adding only a few hundred more to not have to worry about the future might make sense. But maybe those features really don't matter. Would you advise a brand new player to go for a modest option right out the gate, just enough to not be getting a cheap model that will just frustrate, before jumping into higher quality models? Or does the advice of as nice as you can afford scale that far? Thanks in advance for reading my massive amount of overthinking. Any and all advice is accepted with gratitude!

Are we sure that Flying Duck is still in business? I got on the wait list last year, but he hasn't replied to any attempts to contact him again through his website, and the email address bounces. Would really love verification, because I was incredibly excited about the instruments he was offering.