Mike Franch

Agreed! In fact, agreed with gusto!

Signed up! Will be my first time. Be nice to me, folks!

And, to my mind, the S.V. was much more convenient that the air button, but that's probably off topic.

And in 1933 he was granted a patent for a ventilator (for a building, not the kind Dave Barnert uses): https://patents.google.com/patent/US1897440.

Here's the Family Search page on Arthur J. Richardson, complete with a photo with concertina and a photo of his mason's hammer: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L8QX-GS2/arthur-james-richardson-1879-1967. He was married in London in 1900. His older daughter, Myrtle Martha, apparently a twin, was born in 1906. There's no mention of an Elsie. When he died, he lived in Catonsville, a Baltimore suburb.

I use a camera bag, which is well padded. I use foam tubes, designed for pipe insulation, as corner blocks. I don't know what would happen if I fell on it, but it seems well protected against shock.

OMG! "Ridiculously inappropriate" is one of the larger understatements that I've ever read! How to get the memory out of my mind?

At the risk of expanding the topic (although certainly keeping within the subject heading), I've long been curious about how bowing valves affected the sound. I once played a New Model that I think still had them--levers were still on both sides and I assumed that they hadn't been converted to be air valves--but I couldn't get them to affect the sound. Are there any recordings that illustrate bowing valves in use? Mike

I can't believe I watched the whole thing! While I understood only about seven words (all cognates), it was just so much fun watching this guy's enthusiasm for bellows instruments. Plus, there were some concertinas there, the rectangular "German" style ones and even a couple of English concertinas. And did I hear a hornpipe?

You can tell the vintage concertinas that badgers played, they're the ones with the scratches around the buttons.

Wonderful! Those two kids put me to shame!

I asked a German friend about this. She replied, "It looks like a special event at a "Musikverein" (musical society) - of which were many; even the smallest town or village has one! " She, too, loved the plumage on the hats. --Mike

Very clever and simple, but the handle on the right-hand box made me a bit nervous, I have to say! Maybe it's just a bit of scuffing on the top of an otherwise solid handle?

Another thing to think about is learning to play it. Wouldn't it be neat to get enjoyment out of your mother's concertina?

Lovely instrument with a lovely pedigree. Since no one has yet mentioned this, I'll comment about the hexagonal wooden case. It's lovely, but not the thing to keep the instrument in, at least as it's designed to sit on its bottom. It might work sideways, unless it would roll. The reason is that keeping the concertina vertical will result in the leather valves on the bottom distorting as gravity pulls them down. It can also be tricky putting the instrument into and getting out of the box. I'm sure others on the list will chime in on their preferred ways of keeping their concertinas safe: some p