Bill Crossland

And I've just started work on an Aeola with brass pins. Maybe the brain fades in and out as required......

Thanks both.Sorry Alex, you are right, steel rather than brass on old instruments, brain fade on my part. I usually have lots of bits of brass wire left over from spring making which fit the bill - I cut them on an acute angle to get a sharper point, rather than grinding them, but do sometimes struggle to get them in without a curse or two.....

Like Alex, I put the pins in afterwards, but use brass wire (for no other reason that it was dood enough for the old makers. But, a supplementary question - what wood to use as the chamber separators? I've used 1.6 or 2mm aircratft ply for the treble and the baritone anglos I've made, and it has been suggested by various people who have seen/played them that the ply may have a sound deadening effect. I'm in the process of remaking the treble and am intending to try a solid wood partition. Should it be a tonewood, or does it matter? The old makers appear to have used sycamore or something similar....

A picture or two would help

I have used this process on both old and new nickel silver ends with success. Baritone Anglo with newly plated ends pictured below. Not sure there would be equal success with chromed or silver plated ends......

The treble side if the Anglo I made was preety good, but the bigger reeds on the left hand were reluctant to speak quickly. Having said that, putting traditional Lachenal concertina reeds in didn't massively improve the left hand, so that may be a problem with my construction, rather than the reeds themselves. More professional makers get a far better result - Ralf Schlimm's Seven Mount boxes are pretty good.

Dix supplied the attached drawings of the various reed sizes when I bought some from them about 18 months ago, and were very helpful with any queries. This was when the reeds were single rivetted, rather than clamped, so it may not be the definitive version. Contact them through their website for more information. DIX CONCERTINA Reed sizes.pdf

The seller would have received around £2400 after the auction took their bite, it would be far better to sell on Cnet!

The bidding reached £3400 on the Jeffries instrument before being passed

https://horniman.ac.uk/collections/browse-our-collections/keyword/concertina

You can also scan it life-size and import it into your CAD drawing programme

Thanks Mitch - I will still need to sort out the bass register, but I certainly have the basis of a big, mellow baritone!

It's a 30 key Wheatstone anglo from around 1914, he has three similar ones

Thanks Dave - they might be interesting in a bass anglo. I had the opportunity to look inside one of Neil Waynes Wheatstone badged Harmoniums - a photo of the reed array below. It proved to be continental in origin - he has others badged by George Jones and Rock Chidley, which are also continental.

And a picture of the instrument.