conzertino

Stephen, as far as I know, the highest price I heart about was Alf Edards golden Aeola ( ES )!? Do you remember? Jim, I payed 10 Pound for my first Jeffries 1977;-)

The http://www.buttonbox.com has a nice metal-ended Wheatstone tenor-treble Aeola for sale. Somehow I seemed to remember this particular instrument - and they confirmed that an old friend of mine is selling it. So here is the story: He came from the US to visit me in Edinburgh 38 years ago, where I was studying. He was looking for a really good concertina. I knew of one: so we went along to Hugo of "violins etc" in St. Stephens street and finally convinced him to part with the box. I carefully tuned it to concert-pitch - and he went off a happy man. A few years back I met him and his concertina at the NESI. I loved the instrument - especially as he had the action fine-tuned by a specialist. You can see on the pictures that the action is extremely low - which is great for fast playing and chords. It is a lovely box and I can recommend it! Unfortunately I have too many TTs to justify another one.

The Wheatstone model 21 is gone, the Lachenal with rosewood-ends has returned home - the buyer didn't get on with the ultra-flexible seven-fold bellows. He is used to stiff ones... ( I love them - I have exactly the same ones on my Wheatstone Boyd ).

Thank's for reminding me: the core time-is Friday 29th of April to Sunday 1st of May 2016. There will be a concert on Sunday night. Usually about half of the squeezers arrive Thursday and leave Monday... I hope to update the website soon: http://www.concertinas.de/meeting.htm

Today Tim Collins from Ireland confirmed that he will be teaching Irish-anglo at the 25th German Concertina Meeting in the North of Germany spring 2016!!! Dave Townsend will look after the ES players... It will be a great jubilee!!! Does anybody here remember the 10th meeting 2001 in Bielefeld? Tim was there, so was the late Pietro Valente, my hero on the ES.... It was a memorable weekend - and somewhere I must have some recordings of it...

Lovely instrument!!! They don't come much better... Fritz told me that it was Paul Davis's personal instrument for a while ( you can see his signature inside! ) and that Tony McMahon used it on a concert-tour!? Pity that I don't play anglo enough to justify the expense.

Applied physics: pressure = force / area... The smaller the instrument, the higher the air-pressure inside, the louder!

I have two English-system 12 key miniature Aeolas for sale: See http://www.concertinas.de/concertinas

The instrument in question is a Wheatstone Model 21, serial 27031 - made 20.3.1916... So it will be 100 years old next year! However the dutycalculator gave me zero duties for an accordion ( next best musical instrument ).

David Robertson recently tuned my bass. A common problem is that the little screws holding the big reeds tend to break when you try to remove them - very nasty!! David designed a nice little device to tune without touching the screws:

I finished both the 40 key English-system and the 30 key anglo a few months ago. Currently I am using a 5th generation I-pod with thumbjam. Power for the instrument is supplied by the Ipod! I had a lot of fun at the SSI - playing double-bass, tuba or harp most of the night;-) However, as Jim had warned me, the action with digital hall-sensors is far from perfect. The turn-on / turn-off position differs from key to key and the fixed hysteresis doesn't help. Especially with the anglo that seems to be a serious problem! In the meantime I found affordable analog hall-effect-sensors - they output a varying Voltage depending on the applied magnetic field ( little magnet ). So every key can be individually set. So I am starting all over again. It will be another ES instrument - the Hayden will probably have to wait for the next winter... By the way: I rest the instrument on my right knee - hence I have the output-jack on the right side ( see pic! ). However, it is so small and light that it is up in the air most of the time;-)

Thank's Jim. So there is nothing wrong - neither with my bass nor with me;-) I have two G-basses - one single, one double-action - plus a bass-baritone, but I had no major experiences with a C-bass ( yes, I did try your's many years ago! ).

A while ago I bought a Wheatstone C-bass at an auction and asked David Robertson to restore it. So far I haven't seen or played it. However I noticed that the layout seems to be different from normal ES fingering. http://www.concertinas.de/concertinas/C-Bass.htm If you watch the red keys ( David confirms that they actually play a C ), you will find that the low C is on the left side! As far as I know it should be on the right side!! So far it didn't make sense to me.... Any ideas?

One of the Lachenals is gone now.... The other ones are still going!

With one hand you push a little lever to forward the paper-roll. Then just push or pull the bellows for air.... Easy!

Dear Jim, yes it was a great weekend! Sebastian's food and the cake are unforgettable! I really enjoyed your morris-display:

Last weekend at the SSI Jim Lukas was given an extremely rare 70 key marzipan-ended ES Aeola for his 70th birthday. Unfortunately it got damaged during the evening... Has anybody seen anything like it before? ( click to taste... )

Dear Jim, Tina is not on a diet - so she would appreciate some food

Jim, did you get my mail? Tina and I are coming, too! Robert

I added another lovely Aeola miniature plus two wooden-ended Lachenals - due to requests... http://www.concertinas.de/concertinas

Rikki, in fact I find that an advantage either way! And you can basically choose later, if you want to use it as tenor or F-tenor ( I like to call it alto ;-)...

Dear Rikki, about 6 years concertina-connection had two eight-sided tenors for sale. I bought the second one ( the one below that one on the list ). I think I paid 3.500 €. I would estimate the price of the Crabb today as 3000 - 3500 Pound. The position of the keys with respect to the finger-rest suggests that it was made as a F-tenor! To change it back you would have to exchange all B and Bflat plus tune the Dflat up to Eflat... But it would be a pity as F-tenors are extremely rare ( the salvation army loved them - so do I )! I have several tenor-treble and tenor Aeolas - and I certainly prefer the tenors!

Due to my mistake on my concertina-for-sale-list a disccussion came up as to what estabishes an Aeola!? I have both an early six-sided dot & comma treble and a baritone Aeola. Would they have the typical long-scale-reeds? Some people say that the late eight-sided Wheatstone concertinas shouldn't be called Aeolas any more ( even though that's what the late price-lists say )!?!?

I had an ebony-ended Aeola and a model 22 for sale - both extraordinary instruments. They are gone - and have since been taken off the list... Sorry, the heading of the Model 21 was obviously wrong!! That shows, that nobody had looked at my page before And yes, I have two early six-sided Wheatstone Aeolas ( dot & comma ): a treble and - since last weekend - a baritone ( bliss!! ). They are both marked "Aeola" on the ends... I haven't measured the reeds yet!?

We had a great meeting last weekend - thanks to all who came and contributed!!! The Aeola and the Model 22 found new loving homes with two lovely ladies...