Stephen Chambers

Gebr. Gündel (Guendel Bros.) was a manufacturer of accordions in Klingenthal, Saxony, in Eastern Germany. They were founded in 1872 and still in business into the 1960s. They produced piano accordions bearing their brand name Barcarole, and inexpensive diatonic accordions/melodeons bearing their own name.

The correct German designation would be „Deutsche Harmonika". „Handharmonika“ is, properly speaking, a general classification term for all handheld free-reed instruments, including „Konzertina". I speak from half a century of correspondence and discussion with German authorities on free-reed instruments, researchers, authors, manufacturers, and museum curators (especially those of the Schloßbergmuseum in Chemnitz {where the German concertina was invented in 1834} when I was involved in researching and putting on the exhibition „Sehnsucht aus dem Blasebalg. Concertina & Bandoneon" there in 2001).

That looks very much like a variant of the eagle on a rock trade mark of C. F. Dörfel‑Steinfelser & Co. of Klingenthal. Stylistically it probably dates from the 1880s.

Unless they've changed recently, they're essentially the same basic Chinese instruments that everyone else is selling, under numerous different brand names.

Only about binaural recording, anything else you wrote was neither called for nor invited. That's disingenuous. If you meant it you'd have deleted what you wrote already. Can we please get back to discussing this interesting topic?

The fretwork reveals that it's one of the Wheatstone concertinas made for the firm by Louis Lachenal, starting in 1848, so there's the sellers date estimate gone out the window already. It's very similar to #1563 in my collection, discussed in my paper Some Notes on Lachenal Concertina Production and Serial Numbers. As for the price... 🤣

I've been watching The Whistlebinkies at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, 2021 just now Stuart, and came to the section that features the music that the band played for the Scots Gaelic production of "The Scottish Play" (Macbeth, gin ye dinnae mind the curse!) where binaural sound is mentioned as being used in that. Was that the beginning of your interest in the subject?

Isn't it self-evident from the thread title "Binaural Recording of Concertina"? The rest of your post is uncalled-for and not in the friendly spirit of this forum. Whatever you may think, in Scottish music it's the English concertina that is the traditional system.

The date I gave you already is the latest/best estimate from the data banks. The serial number 28293 appears to be from the very end of 1888, so possibly the beginning of 1889.

See you in Ennis Dan, it's been too long!

Of course, as I've mentioned before, there's a link - in that Jones was the original builder of Jeffries' concertinas.

That's an expensive (professional quality) 4-stopper Castagnari melodeon in the key of D, and I sold it to him about 25 years ago.

That's 31 cents sharp, almost a third of a semitone. You'd be lucky to get away with your life - don't try it! You won't, it's not a known standard. Maybe it's meant to be Medium/Old Royal Society of Arts Pitch (A-444 = 15 cents sharp)?

A very noticeable 31 cents to be precise You might be surprised how many of the old-style players in Ireland only ever used the C#...

I just came across the tuning diagram for it, twelve years later! On the left hand side it (30+ years ago) was A#/C# (C row) and F/G# (G row), and on the right hand side C#/D# (C row) and A#/G# (G row).

On any 26-key the buttons you have are numbers 3, 4, and 5 of the accidental row of a 30-key on the LH side, so C#/Eb, A/G, G#/Bb, regardless of the maker. But the RH sides are different: On a Lachenal or Wheatstone you'd get buttons 1, 2, and 3 of the accidental row of a 30-key, so C#/Eb, A/G, G#/Bb again, an octave higher. Whilst on a Jeffries you'd get buttons 2, 3, and 4 of a Jeffries 30-key, giving you C#/Eb, G#/G, and C#/Bb.

That Jeffries would need completely rebuilding, including replacement fretwork - it's because of the offset layout of the accidental row buttons (normal on a 26-key Jeffries), the layout of the levers, and the fullness of the fretwork. Like I said, it depends on the exact model, even the individual instrument - I've had a late 20-key Wheatstone converted into a 30-key for a customer (by Steve Dickinson) because its layout was that of a 30-key lacking the third row. But you couldn't do that with 99.9% of them... And I've converted 26-key rosewood ended Lachenals that had been made with the fretwork of a 30-key - sometimes even with the extra levers already inside them!

The answer to your question would depend on the make, and model, of the 26-key Anglo, but I have successfully converted a few 26-key, mahogany-ended Lachenals into 28- or 30-keys, using the vacant reed chambers in their reed-pans. Photos of an end, and a reed-pan, would be a big help in determining if it was possible.

That'd be towards the end of 1922 Shay.

Certainly, that'll be 1897.

Exactly! "The right hand ... originally had a check valve that opened in the opposite direction" - they were to, at will, provide a softer sound in the opposite bellows direction, achieving effects more akin to violin bowing.

I guess nobody followed my Alsepti/bowing valves link then... If they had, they'd have seen how "Alsepti and Richard Ballinger, the latter an employee of the firm of Lachenal, received a patent for the invention of their so-called “bowing valves” (called “relief” valves in the patent), which, situated near the thumb strap on each side of the instrument and raised and lowered with the thumb (thus operated somewhat like the modern air valve), were supposed to permit subtle gradations with respect to both dynamic levels and the manipulation of the bellows (Alsepti likened the latter feature to the use of the bow on string instruments." Allan Atlas' article also provides a link to the patent, No. 8290, dated 8 July 1885: http://www.concertina.com/patents/Alsepti-Ballinger-No-8290-of-1885.pdf

Lachenal certainly made some with large-headed rivets for Wheatstone's, Wes, with the simpler pattern of spindle-cut fretwork and in maple. But I don't recall seeing them in a "People's Concertina" - I must check the early example that I have, stored elsewhere.

Thanks, that's sufficient to confirm what I supposed. It looks like the (disastrous) steel reed-frames, etc., were (mercifully) only tried out on a relatively small number of their cheaper, spindle-cut fretted, Anglos.

That would seem to be from the beginning of 1916 Daniel. In fact it fits right into a sequence of numbers that I'm interested in, described in the thread Steel reed frames in c.1915 Lachenal Anglos, so I'd be interested to learn more about it. Like does it have "full" (to the edge) hand-cut fretwork or spindle-cut? Brass, or steel, reed-frames? Etcetera...