Dowright

John, All else the same, I simple would have estimated the year of manufacture as 1867 based on the serial number of No. 12732. And maybe that is a good estimate. But all is not the same: the problem is the label showing Lachenal & Co. The first English-system Lachenal in my database (having over 2300 entries) is No. 19070. All earlier ones for which I have information are labeled "Louis Lachenal, Patent Concertina Manufacturer." So your No. 12732 may have been made in the mid-1860s and then had a post-1873 label substituted for the original label. Or is could have been made after 1873 but with a serial number corresponding to the earlier manufacturing period.

I agree with the Wes Williams' dating--about 1902/1903. I do not have a receipt for a Lachenal Maccann duet that is "right under" or "right above" your No. 2184. My closest is No. 1819 with an original bill of sale for a 62-key Maccann, dated 8 February 1898. Incidently, until about 1910, Maccann and Crane duets by Lachenal & Co. had separate serial number series. Thus, Crane duet numbers do not enter into estimating the dating of Maccann duets at the turn of the century. At the beginning of 1903, the Crane series was probably only around no. 330, and around no. 400 by the end of the year.

Serial number please.

Stephen is right. A data point is usually from a receipt for a new Lachenal concertina. Many handwritten dates are found inside vintage Lachenals, but these dates were usually written well after the concertinas were made, typically at the time of repair/retuning. And care must be take to avoid assuming that receipts for used concertinas are receipts for new ones. But here is a data point for a Lachenal made near the time of yours: No. 109790: 20 key, Wood Ends; Bone Buttons; Steel Reeds; 5-fold (now new 6-fold) bellows, purchased in 1890 by Fred Dawson at a cost of GBP3.5. Fred Dawson died in 1943 at the age of 73. This information was reported in 1943 by his son, Arthur Dawson. So we date your No. 109854 as circa 1890.

Fred, Thanks for checking the serial number. As it turns out, I cannot be 100% certain that No. 50920 is correct for the other concertina that I mentioned.

I would appreciate your confirming that the serial number on the English concertina is No. 50920. In my data, I have the description of a 48-key Lachenal English concertina with serial number 50920. If both are accurate, this would bwe the first time I have seen the same serial number on two English Lachenals. Also note that I have an entry for No. 50914, matching the description of your 35-key New Model, even including the somewhat unusual 6-fold bellows.

You suggest dating of 18th Century or early 19th Century--periods before the concertina was invented! If the serial number is in fact 56679, the instrument was manufactured in about 1880. However, it is important to check if a leading "1" is partly hidden behind the fretwork. If so, the serial number would be 156679, and the instrument would have been manufactured in about 1897. I would suggest that you open one of the ends, where you will find the serial number stamped on the reed pan. In addition you will be able to see if it has steel or brass reeds--a fundamental element influencing value.

I have the following information: No. 729 46-key Maccann Duet; metal fretwork; metal buttons; 6-fold bellows; J. Thomas, concertina soloist, March 4, 1896. Given the serial number (729), I estimate that it was manufactured in about 1890, and the personal badge was added later. Of course, Mr. Thomas may well have had more that one Lachenal Maccann duet. Is yours the No. 729?

Folks, Please realize that PICA has died--RIP--prompting us to attempt to create a new place for concertina research. Yes, of course, we tried to engage the ICA group, without success.

I do not know who owns it (or owned it), but I was provided with the following information for No. 128527: 30 keys; 5 3/4" across; Metal Fretwork; Bone Buttons; Steel Reeds; new 6-fold bellows.

I would like to revise one of my guesses. My new guess is brass reeds instead of steel. Why? Because No. 167448 is also 28 key and has wood fretwork, bone buttons, brass reeds and 5-fold bellows. There could have been a batch of 28-keys with the same features.

Your No. 167442 was made in about 1900. I have the original receipt for No. 162849--a 20 key dated in 1898. What is the rest of the description for your 28 key? My guesses: wood fretwork, bone buttons, steel reeds and 5-fold bellows.

Correction. On checking, I did have one description for a metal-fretwork 20-key Lachenal Anglo. The serial number is relatively close to your 171428. It is No. 169989 with the same features as 171428. That is, inset metal fretwork, bone buttons, and 5-fold bellows. It is conceivable that they experimented with this model for only a short time and found it not to be popular. "If you go to the expense of buying a metal-fretwork Anglo, why not spend a little more and get a 30 key"? So now I have two 20-key metal-fretwork in my data.

Stephen I was only referring to 20-key Lachenals, not Jeffries etc. Maybe I should have said that a 20-key Lachenal Anglo with metal fretwork would be extremely rare, to cover the fact that anything could appear as a special order. I have descriptions of 1,374 Lachenal 20-key Anglos, and none of them have metal fretwork.

A better estimate for the year of manufacture is circa 1901. You do not indicate the number of keys, but my guess is 30. If it were a 20 key, it would not have metal ends and would have 5-fold bellows. But is could be a 32-key, etc.?

Salvation Army (SA) official endorsement of the Crane duet concertina came later, maybe as late as the introduction of the Triumph in 1912. In 1905, the SA published The Salvation Army Anglo-German and English Concertina Tutor (London: SA Publishing Offices, 1905). The Salvation Army Concertina is shown as a 26-key Anglo (Part I. I can tell that the illustration is of one made by George Jones). Part IV of the tutor is "The English Concertina." The tutor does not contain anything on duet concertinas.

As someone guessed in one of the an earlier threads, the C&S numbers were inventory numbers used by Crane & Sons. The series was for all types of instruments sold by Crane, not just concertinas. I have serial numbers and descriptions for 20 Lachneal concertinas with C&S inventory numbers. The lowest numbered pair: Lachenal No. 10 and C&S 107. The highest numbered pair: Lachenal No. 693 and C&S08809 In all cases, the two series are in consistent order. That is, the higher the Lachenal serial number, the higher the C&S number. Regarding the dating of Don Taylor's Lachenal No. 360, I would estimate circa 1903 for the year of manufacture. My guesses for production by year are: (1896: 5 Cranes); (1897: 25); (1898: 40); (1899:50); (1900-1910: 70-75 Cranes). The production picked up in 1900 due to more prominent advertising of Cranes (as played by Dutch Daly et al). I know that the separate Lachanel serial number sets for Crane and Maccann duets goes at least past No. 867, because I have both a No. 867 46 key Maccann and a No. 867 48 key Crane. However, the separate Crane series may have gone as high as about No. 1200 by 1910 when the Buttersworth patent held by Crane expired. At that time, I think that the Maccann series was at about No. 3000. (I need to check these numbers!) Crane & Sons turned to other pursuits, and of course Lachenal introduced the Crane/Triumph under the auspices of the Salvation Army in 1912. Incidentally, I have never seen a Crane duet with the label of some retailer other than C&S, Lachenal, or the Salvation Army.

You and I both show about 50% for the 20 key to 24 key Anglo Lachenals. But I think that it is an under-estimate, because the more expensive instruments with more keys probably have a higher survival rate. The damaged 20-24 key ones would have been the leading candidates for the rubbish bin.

Yes Steve, that's the point--retail dealers calling themselves "maker"!

Why the cutout pan labels? The main explanation is that, when "Louis Lachenal" became "Lachenal & Co." , the new owners "inherited" a supply of left-over "Louis Lachenal" labels. In some instences, they went to the trouble of cutting out the "Louis Lachenal" from the ciricular pan label: in other instances, they left the original label intact. In my data for Lachenal English concertinas, the first with a Lachenal & Co. label is No. 19070, dating from right around the change in the company name in 1873. Subsequently, there are 9 with "Louis Lachenal" labels, the highest numbered one being No. 22717. But in the no.19070 to no. 22717 range, there are also a number with "Lachenal and Co." labels. In this range as well as all other ranges, there are obviously a number of instruments labeled with the names of retail dealers. This labeling possibly adding another incentive for cutting the "Louis Lachenal" (or maybe even a "Lachenal & Co.") from a pan label. Incidentally, I independently also date the year of manufacture for No. 16018 to 1870.

My database for Anglo Lachenal concertinas currently has serial numbers and descriptions for about 3000 Anglos. The percentages by number of keys are as follows: 20 key: 46% 22 key: 1.2% 24 key: 1.1% 26 key: 5 % 28 key: 2% 30/31 key: 30% 32 key: 10% 33/36 key: 1% 37/39 key: 1% 40/41 key: 1.3%

Randy here: I would date the year of manufacture for your Maccann duet as circa 1896. (The closest marker that I have is Lachenal Maccann No. 1819, which was purchased in 1898.) And 1896, of course, is the year in which the Crane duet was patented. During 1886-1910, Maccann duets and Crane duets had separate serial number series. The Crane patent expired, and Lachenal began using Lachenal & Co. on the Crane labels. In 1912, the Crane Triumph model was introduced for the Salvation Army.

Of the many Anglo tutors that I have seen (see Randall Merris's article on concertina tutors at concertina.com), the majority of the key layout diagrams show push on the top and draw on the bottom. So that is the tradition. Now to the logic of draw on the top and push on the bottom: One of the tutor authors who used the Draw/Push told me that draw was on the top, because the reeds that sounded on the draw were on the top of the reed pan, and the reeds on the push are on the underside of the reed pan, inside the bellows.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake. Here is the story: I originally got the information, more than a decade ago, from a concertina dealer who has been very reliable in providing information on a number of Lachenals. However, he mistakenly read the '3' as an '8' and gave me No. 187243. The footnote to my original entry shows all the information about THIS INSTRUMENT PLAYED TROUPS INTO BATTLE AT ARMENTIERES, Private A. Lewis, 71st Battalion, etc. (The bellows frame contains a listing of other battles: Seine, Aucre, Asine,Yesev, and Marne.) I quickly viewed the concertina.net posting in 2014 but, since no serial number was given, I did not recognize that it was the same concertina. I did not pay enough attention to the '"Pvt. A. Lewis" to see if it was in my database. A subsequent purchaser of the instrument then sent me the No. 137243, and I mistakenly entered it in my database without further consideration. I need to remove the No. 187243 and do considerable reworking of my assumptions for dating 20th century Anglo Lachenals. (My nemesis is late-period Anglos: I have an easier time in estimating for Englishes and Maccann and Crane duets and for earlier-period Anglos.) Here are a few thoughts: No. 137243 dates from about 1894. I have the receipt--which is shown somewhere here in concertina.net--for No. 140871 (32 key) dated Oct. 1895. So 20 years before Armentieres, Private Lewis would have bought the concertina or, more likely, he was the 2nd or 3rd owner. Here is a little info: No. 169404. Handwritten "T. Walpole, 58 Everton Brow, Liverpool , July 24, 1903." (20 key in Bb/F, wood fret, bone buttons, steel reeds 5-fold). No. 169101. Bill of sale by retailer Rushworth and Draper, February 27, 1906. (30 key in C/G, wood fret, bone buttons, steel reeds, 6-fold). Note the chronology of 2-1/2-year later sale of a lower number, which is consistent with what Stephen has said concerning that Lachenals probably were not always completed in the order of the serial numbers and (2) Rushworth and Draper may have had the concertina in inventory for some time. Using 28,000 instruments (197000 minus169000) over a 22-1/2 year period (mid-1903 to end-1925), gives an estimate of annual productiion of 1244, or about 1200-1250 per year. Hopefully, better and more complete estimates to follow in the future. DOWRIGHT, GET IT DONE!

Consider thew following by Edward Francis Rimbault in the "Musical Instruments" section of G. Phillips (ed.), British Manufacturing Industries, Vol. 11 (London; Edward Stanton, 1st ed. 1876; 2nd ed. 1878). "Another result of the use of the free-reed is the invention of the English concertina."(page 139). . . . . Another instrument has sprung out of this--the Anglo-German concertina . . . . It is of great commercial importance to Saxony and Vienna, where 400,000 are manufactured annually. In England, there are only two great makers, Messrs. Lachenal and Chidley (late Wheatstone), and the manufacture is about 5000 annually [bold added]." (page 140) This is the only citiation that I have for annual production of Anglo concertinas in the period. Note that if "5000 annually" is attributed to Lachenal, it is pretty close to my 1870s estimate--made independently--(see the above posting). [Rimbault must have been referring to Edward Chidley, because Rock Chidley had gone bankrupt more than a decade earlier. And Edward did not make many concertinas under his own name. I guess Rimbualt did not know about the George Jones and Jeffries operations.] Rimbault should be viewed as a pretty reliable source. He was an organist, musicologist, and musical antiquarian. He was best known as for the organ--player and author: The Organ: Its History and Construction (1855) and Early English Organ Builders and Their Works (1865). But he was also 'keyed-in" to the concertina. Under the pen name of "Franz Nava," he has over 100 popular music arrangements in the British Library. As Franz Nava, he published several collections of tunes specifically for concertina, as well as for violin, flute, cornet and clarionet: Chappell's 100 Irish Melodies ... or Concertina (1859), Chappell's 100 Scottish Melodies ... or Concertina (1859), Chappell's 100 Revival Hymns ... or Concertina (1874), etc. He was an associate and friend of Joseph Warren (prolific concertina music arranger and concertina tutor author) until they had a split. 400,000 annual production on the Continent! Even if somewhat overstated, it indicates impressive output.