Ken_Coles

Others may be wondering like me...is this a C/G instrument? [Apologies if you've stated this above and I've missed it] Those accidentals would make sense on a C/G. Ken

I once had sign of woodworm (nothing this drastic, just new holes and wood dust) in the frame of a newly-framed picture. I hustled that thing out to the garage until it was good and freezing cold winter weather to be sure all the worms were dead and gone - you don't want them anywhere near any wooden instruments of value! Good luck with restoring it. Ken

Welcome aboard! It helps us give advice/locate help for you if you tell us where in the world you are located (or add it to your profile, in which case it will appear by your name). There is a lot of info we can show you. Ken

Summer of 1980, right David? I was in the row right behind you! 😎 (But I don't remember the names of all the cast members.) Ken

Actually I grew up in Pasadena, California, near a technical university some have heard of. It was a fascinating childhood (JPL nearby during the first exploration of the solar system and so on). One of my father's former graduate students is now on the faculty at Purdue. Back to our regularly scheduled discussion! Ken

Where are you located? Having someone who knows concertinas assess (in person) the condition, determine if it is in C/G or some other key, etc., would help answer your questions. Looks like an intact baffle inside the right end. Ken

Here is a von Karmán vortex street (including the cylinder from which they are shedding), courtesy of Sanjay Kumar and George Laughlin, Dept. of Engineering, U. Texas Brownsville, who posted it at https://www.aps.org/units/dfd/pressroom/gallery/2009/kumar09.cfm. Ken

Tom et al., While only a few follks here are qualified to take up Tom's discussion (and I'm sure they'll turn up), I have to note that these are all terms from my childhood. My late fater was a professor of aeronautics and mentioned some of these issues, particularly turbulent flow and Karman vortex streets, all the time I knew him. (von Karman was a character; my mother, now 95, remembers him but that's another story.) In the 1970s my father did an experiment in a ten-foot wind tunnel with a graduate student where they mounted a metal tube perhaps 4 inches/10 cm in diameter transverse to the flow and measured the vortices shedding off it with a hot wire (a thermocouple whose temperature varies with the speed of the air passing and thus cooling it). My father said. "The shedding of vortices in this way is what makes harp strings sing in the wind." I'll dig up an example of a vortex street and add an image here later for folks who don't have time to check wiki right away. Ken [PS: Tom, I see preview as a little magnifying glass icon near the top right of the "Add reply" window.]

Thanks Wolf, I didn't know that (I should make myself an ordinary user account to test these things) - no doubt one of Paul's quiet upgrades to the system. Ken

The first hybrid I saw (and I'll guess this was true for some of the other people with me at the time, which includes Paul Schwarz) was at the 1998 Noel Hill school in Massachusetts in September. It was one of the first Herringtons (square, IIRC) brought by its owner, whose name escapes me. I missed 1999, from which Ross Schlabach reported to me that the Button Box production prototype for what is now the Ceili was passed around. I had most of the dates of my first observations of all these brands in an article on the vanished static side of C.net. Some day I'll have to fish around on the server and see if the info is there, as I'd like to archive it somewhere. Mark Tamsula, a local fiddler, told me a funny story that ties in here. He was the office manager three decades ago for the local folk music society (Calliope, yes namesake of the tune Calliope House, home of one of the founders, piper George Balderose). As such he fielded all the phone calls from hopeful acts that wanted to book a concert in Pittsburgh. He said there were all kinds of offers. One day a caller said he was the "world's fastest tapdancer," but Mark finally convinced him they weren't interested and the tapdancer hung up/rang off. Who was it? Michael Flatley, not long before he hit on the Riverdance idea (give credit for persistence where it is due). Ken

Priscilla and I have had fun listening to Train on the Island as well. Ken

Ben (member name ben) up in Canada sometimes has 40-key late Wheatstones close to this price range. You could ask him. Ken

It would help if you tell us your location, where you are willing to sell/ship, forms of payment you'll accept, where can interested persons come to try it out, etc. Ken

Frank will certainly tell you (and show you) that working from the G row can be very successful, and I know he admires Droney's playing greatly (as many of us do). There's more than one way to play in D on C/G anglo. Each method has its strengths and adherents. If only one method were truly successful, the others would be extinct by now after a century and a half, so play on in any system that works. The only experience I have to add is that someone just learning the instrument should choose and learn one fingering system (any system) and stick to it initially. You'll be able to tell when you are ready to experiment with other ways of playing. At that point, having multiple approaches can put more tools in your musical toolbox. Ken

Well, TS stands for something you'd see in the bathroom, from the days when your great aunts had redecorated their house by installing them in a celluloid finish - at least, mine did, in a sort of vampire green. Sitting on a red one would have been a trip. Ken