Theo

Al, thanks for posting. What is the smallest cutter diameter you can use? I ask because the originals were hand cut with a piercing saw, and the cutter would have to be very fine to get the internal corners looking as sharp as the originals. Would a laser cut get a finer detail?

Paul, I'll be interested to hear the responses here. I also have a 32 button rosewood Lachenal that needs a new end fret. One end is good the other has been replaced with a fretted end plate made from bright blue acrylic!

As Dana mentioned Jeffries reeds are usually very consistent which suggests that the reed tongue may have been replaced. If that’s the case then I think the best course is to send the faulty reed to one of the makers who produce concertina reeds and ask them to fit a new tongue.

I'd like to ask what method you used to set the reed gap/height? In my experience very small high pitch reeds can only be set to the optimal gap by trial and improvement. It can't be done done by just looking at the size of the gap. I'm also not clear about what kind of airiness you are getting? Is it a continuous airiness while the reed is speaking, or a air passing before the reed speaks? If the former it suggests air leaks, if the latter its more likely to be the reed gap.

Bidding over £1000 now. Someone could get badly burned.

Thank you. This one was particularly difficult to spot. It has none of the external links offering to buy outside of eBay, nor a long list of other high vale items from the same seller. It just seemed too good to be true, and when google turned up the same text and images that confirmed it. I’ve reported it to eBay, but they’ve done nothing yet. The more people who report it the better.

Just appeared on ebay today https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174326256494 I've found a thread on thesession.org with examples of the same punctuation errors in the description: "This accordion is an early 1950 ,s probably 1950-1952., Overall condition is fairly good for its age .The tuning is BC ,The body of the box is complete,and as far as I can see, free of woodworm The bellows are still remarkably good for their age" Google image search finds the same first image on two old listings on Gumtree. Beware

I've been able to find a nice piece of 100+ year old mahogany for Marien which should do the job nicely.

They use accordion reeds, which are much cheaper than concertina reeds. From your description I think they would not have the sound you want.

Lots of clues there. I would not place too much weight on the design of the end frets. I think it's highly likely that they are not original. They look like typical Lachenal & Co machine cut ends and as such would have been made at least a couple of decades after the rest of the concertina. They might even have been made by Lachenal as a repair, though that is pure speculation on my part.

There is a Scates English here in the Concertina Museum that has similar action

Could this be another German made EC on Ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184326181810 Features that make me think this: fret pattern, size and shape of endbolt heads, size of screws in the finger rest.

Do you know a young musician who could recommend for the gig? As long as they are otherwise healthy their risk is less than yours and they will almost certainly attach more value to the fee. You avoid personal risk and can enjoy the warm glow of knowing you have helped another musician and the cafe owner.

Fretwork is also consistent with Tidder. It’s a copy of the Lachenal pattern, but hand cut rather than machine cut so has sharper internal angles.

My vote goes to the 21 as well. I’ve had one Holmwood in my hands, also a Tenor Treble. Beautifully made and sounded good but it was heavy, possibly a little heavier than an equivalent Wheatstone.