gavdav

Reluctant sale of a very nice six sided 57 key duet dating back to 1915. 8 fold bellows in good condition. Previously owned by well known songwriter Keith Marsden (there's a couple of pics in the Picking Sooty Blackberries book). Lovely tone, typical of a good period metal ended wheatstone. Nice singing box. I've so far only learned to play it convincingly in F and am an anglo player at heart, but I'm a fan of the Maccann system - pretty straightforward and very rewarding! according to the ledgers this is May 12th 1915 number 26825 58 keys (57 plus air) Maccann duet I'm after offers around £1600, and happy to negotiate soemthing. Donation to c.net if sold on here. I'm based in North London, UK, where you're welcome to try the instrument.

Does anyone know of or is able to recommend a person to carry out tuning work on an Anglo in London, UK? I'm aware of many great repairers and tuners aroudn the country, but I don't have much time to send the box off. Private message or thread reply is fine. Gav

Just how big are the ends? And what's the weight? And any chance of a complete button layout? OK - to answer those questions there's a post here somewhere with a layout. the weight is 1.71kg which whilst not lightweight is light enough for me to play stood up outdoors for brief periods but would probably wear those wrists in prolonged action. I usually put my foot up for playing live. As for why I think it was originally a Wheatstone Jeffries duet - a long story, but all the AG duets from the ledger to me seem to be Jeffries Systems - I used to own 30998 as well. There are some historic markings of note names on the nickel plate from the original owner which are scarcely visible now but also suggest this. All I know is it works superbly as it is and offers even further scope for those wishing to delve! Here's the ledger page.

It is a standard larger size - 7 inches across the flats - just measured it. It is marked as AG duet in the ledgers. I believe it is serial 30995. Here's an old keyboard chart - just noticed i have the A/B on the g row the wrong way round - it is a conventional B/A button

I am reluctant, like I say, but am not playing it much and have not managed to sell the house so will be paying mortgage and rent! Limited options sadly

Treat yourself to an early Christmas present. With great reluctance I am offering for sale my 1926 G/D Wheatstone (linota period but I believe built as a Jeffries System duet!!!) Nickel ends, looks, feels and sounds wonderful. Sadly as I have a job in London in the new year I need to raise the money for rent and flat deposit, and I'm almost exclusively playing Maccann at the moment. This is one of the sweetest, warmest sounding boxes I have ever played, but is also pokey enough to cut through in a session or for morris. I bought it from Paul Read of this forum a few years back and it has been a faithful friend for live and recording work. The original worn handles were replaced by stylishly engineered modern equivalents made by Wally Carroll. Plays very comfortably in G/D and A as well as relative minors, but still has several unisonoric keys - a left hand G drone and an A drone which I find great for minor songs. Currently it functions as a 30+ key Wheatstone system anglo but offering tantalising options for extra notes wherever you need them. In concert pitch, well maintained over a number of years. 7 fold original and superb bellows. superb reeds, brass shoes. A few scuffs and bits of minor wear as you'd expect for a box of this age. Other drone keys could be converted to make a full anglo row in A for example. The concertina is of the larger size - the same as my 57 key duet. Still has its original case, for completeness sake, but this has seen better days. To get a concertina of this quality made would cost a significant amount from any modern maker and finding a vintage one would be a challenge. Insurance value is £8500, I paid £4500. I am looking for £4000 for a reasonably quick sale, and I would maybe consider other anglos or possibly a MacCann in part exchange. I am based in Yorkshire, UK donation to c.net if sold here, but will be listing elsewhere soon.

John - the new Thomann Ovid System mics are extremely good and quite reasonable - not much more than a microvox and far superior sound as they are good quality condensers.

Will be sticking this on eBay within the week. Open to any reasonable offers before then, and obviously donation to c.net if sold through here.

more images and sound samples available on demand.

Due to divorce and the financial uncertainties of life as a full time gigging musician I need to sell one of my concertinas. As I currently only play one song on the C/G this is the obvious candidate. It is a 1926 four row Wheatstone. It has eight fold gold tooled bellows - by David Leese with the original unusual wheatstone tooling. Restored and tuned last year it is a great singing box - due to its size it wouldn't really suit fast tune playing, though the reeds are nice and responsive, but it is a superb and very rare concertina. Condition is pretty good - there are the usual cracks and the box would undoubtedly benefit from a full investment in a restoration, but it is sound and plays well. As well as all the buttons you would expect from a 39 key anglo, this currently has an extra row of notes that are currently drones (duet keys) but which could be altered to provide a third anglo row - e.g. in the key of F I will post pictures shortly, but it features in the main image at http://www.gavindavenport.com I would like to raise £4500 from the sale of this concertina but am of course open to offers. This price is competitive and with some thoughtful work on the extra row could be an amazing amazing instrument. I would consider part exchange of smaller C/G or F/C concertinas. thanks Gav

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=4974 Old footage of winlaton.

Also now available on iTunes - Gavin Davenport, Brief Lives - if people want to preview or purchase digitally. thx. Gav

Easiest way to get hold of a copy is to PM me and I'll send paypal details. I'm waiving shipping in the UK and US/Canada on Ballad-L and I will do the same here, so the cost is s straight £10 Thanks to Mike for the plug and Kind words. Features anglo concertina on several tracks and a bit of one row melodeon, guitar and cittern and some fiddle too! All songs, all narrative. Gav

Playing at Bright Phoebus at the Boardwalk on November 2nd in a little showcase spot. The concertina is one of the anglo duet hybrids, but I'm basically just on the Anglo rows here.

Love the sound, but the camera didn't pick you up so clearly; I can't always tell what you're singing. Can you tell us what your lyrics are? It seems different from any version of the False Knight that I can discover, though not without similarities. It is my own composition - leans on the format of the trad. ballad but is based on the true story of the day a very brave, or very foolhardy Canadian artillery captain destroyed himself and an attacking tiger tank to save the rest of my grandad's unit. Mike - yes, I will be at Whitby - hopefully performing solo but may have a few other things up my sleeve too. all dates on www.gavindavenport.com

a quick vid of me, singing with a bit of Concertina (Wheatstone AngloGerma/ duet) at the Woodlands Lawns - not sure who took this!

Thanks for all the enquiries - both of these instruments have now sold, and hopefully a donation to c.net will be on its way! Gav

bump - Jeffries price reduced, on here for a few days before going to eBay.

A friend of mine, (who happened to be an engineer working for the likes of NASA) made his own melodeon/button accordion, having borrowed a top end italian one, copied everything accurately and used top notch parts. When it was finished he went straight out and bought an italian box of his own, saying he could now understand where the money went and why they cost what they did.

both my april 1926 boxes have the puckered octagon (best metal??) labels

Suggesting that one should avoid any product that derives from an animal source, even if no animal was harmed in harvesting it? Shearing sheep doesn't harm them. In fact, in hot summer weather shearing is beneficial. But if avoiding contact with anything animal is your philosophy, then I guess you don't have any pets. Yeah. No glue joints, were there? I feel my sense of irony and the general light heartedness with which this thread began may have been lost somewhere in the previous thread - FWIW (nothing) I eat meat (as ethically as I can) and play a large number of instruments made from restricted or endangered or animal products - I'm unconcerned by this fact, as in in neither proud nor ashamed - what works works. The above items were merely an attempt to collate a fun list of items used in making a concertina which derived from animal sources (not to avoid them), in answer to a question earlier in the thread.Personally I'm more bothered by waste than what we use in a material sense. As for fur, pick up any felt hat of any quality (mine, used for occasional Morris outings, is made from beaver fur felt) and most will say fur felt - the highest quality available. I wasn't sure what grade of felt was used in the average wheatstone or jeffries of the last century, and was just citing an example of something else one could get ones knickers in a twist about if you so desired. Again, despite the ranting and stigmatic things from people on both sides of the pro/anti fur lobby I think it is really sad that piles of fur coats get burned so as not to offend anyone. Having just googled it it looks like 'tinas and pianos do usually use wool felt...anyway... Again, I have no axe to grind on either side of this argument - this started off as a well meaning academic question and seems to be drifting into something else. I'm off to play that rosewood Jeffries...

exactly - I didn't mean to derail a construction based thread, but what's done is done and anyway, can you imagine a synthetic based concertina that would still be as playable as a vintage jeffries or wheatstone is now, in another 100 years? (and yep, I love that brazilian rosewood, bone and leather box...) I was intrigued by those carbon fibre edeophone ends though... FWIW I don't really think you can make anything that doesn't have some impact or potentially arguable ethical side effect if you particularly wanted to go down that route, but life is too short PS - Morse concertinas also contain Beeswax if we're still tallying a list of animal ingredients

Shellac is the refined resin secretions of the female lac bug - so yes French polish is derived from animals. Is the felt of woven wool? yep, and red shellac actually has crushed cochineal beetles in it . felt - normally broken fur fibres so there is no "thread" and *ahem* there's a slight fur ethics issue in historical felt... but really...you could go crazy with this stuff... my Buddhist side says yes, animal products bad, then again, my other Buddhist side says, restricted harvest/illegal wood content, metal content, animal content, plastic parts, poor hourly paid manual labour, blood, sweat and tears etc etc all add up to make yet another instrument I shouldn't play, just like my rosewood guitars, koa cittern, held together with cow glue and so on and so on...but... music is probably the purest, most honest thing I've ever experienced and the more you pursue these things the more ethically futile it all becomes - there's something special about taking an out of fashion hundred year old assemblage of matter and doing somethinf that moves and engages people. academically I'm intrigued by alternatives, but somehow musical instruments are disturbingly and reassuringly alive whatever their origins...