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Old Wheatstone For Sale


hummingbear

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Hi,

 

I'm new here, so feel free to offer advice of any kind.

 

My wife has had this old heirloom concertina in the attic, and finally decided to sell it.

Although I'm a musician, I know nothing about concertinas, so I'm not sure how best to go about it. Is this a good place to advertise, or should I try E-bay, or consign it to a dealer?

 

I'm located in California.

 

Here are the specifics:

 

Wheatstone # 31202, 56 buttons, octagonal, 6-fold bellows

Ends are lacquered wood, reddish (mahogany?); bellows is black leather; buttons are metal (brass, or possibly gold-plated?)

The bellows is intact and all the buttons work. Everything in great condition, except for some wear on the leather on the inner sides of the ends.

Original box, brown leather with purple velvet lining. Good condition, except for broken strap and lock.

What else can I tell you? Should I try to figure out the range of the notes?

Any offers?

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Is this a good place to advertise, or should I try E-bay, or consign it to a dealer?

Any offers?

Take your time about selling this instrument. You can expect a number of offers. If I offered you $3000, I'd be offereing to cheat you. You might even want to consider keeping it and learning to play, but that might depend on why you've decided to sell it.

 

What you have is a superb instrument. #31202 was made in 1926. The ends are tortoise shell and the buttons and fittings are gold-plated. It's an English-system concertina of the sort known as "extended treble", i.e., with a 4-octave, fully chromatic range starting on a lowest note of G below middle C, the same low G as a violin.

 

You might get highest price on eBay, but you'll probably get competitive offers here, too.

 

There is a problem, though: Sale of anything with tortoise shell is restricted under the US Endangered Species Act, which is considerably more restrictive than the CITES treaty which its preamble says it's based on. Under strict interpretation of the US law, selling it to a party outside the US would be illegal and could result in its being confiscated. I'm not even sure whether it's legal to sell it within the US, except to a specially licensed dealer, even though it was made in 1926, long before either CITES or the US law.

 

(The CITES regulations exempt sales between private individuals where the object in question was made before the treaty went into effect, but that exemption is missing from the wording of the US law, though it does make provision for commercial dealers to get such exempt status.)

 

Meanwhile, you have a beatiful instrument. Are you sure you don't want to learn to play it? We'll be glad to help you with that, too. :) What instrument(s) do you currently play?

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The Button Box is always up for purchasing quality concertinas like yours and compensates very fairly....

 

I'd like to float a note of caution here that even though your concertina may appear to be in "great condition", any concertina that has not been used in such a long time will probably need its valves replaced as they stiffen up with age and disuse - which in turn requires the box to be retuned. Not a simple nor inexpensive job.

 

Not that you need it to be in pristine condition to be able to sell it... Just that the condition of the box will be a factor in the sales price.

 

I'm sure that you'd be able to sell your box here on concertina.net for a tidy and realistic sum. Ebaying it may yield a bit more, but that is not without various risks as well. You WILL get somewhat less for it by consigning it through a dealer (as opposed to selling it here on concertina.net). And a bit less than that by selling it outright to a dealer (after all, we need to account for our expenses and profit!).

 

Whichever way you choose, I imagine that you won't have a problem finding a new home for it. That really is quite a desirable box!

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Hummingbear,

Try to play the instrument a while before you take the step of parting with it. Others with a similar opening question in this forum have come to an appreciation of their instrument that goes far beyond dollars.

Jack

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Thanks to all who have replied. You've been very kind.

Someone was clever enough to point me to the Wheatstone ledger page which lists this instrument:

 

http://www.horniman.info/DKNSARC/SD02/PAGES/D2P0590S.HTM

 

which led me to realize that I'd typed the serial # incorrectly; it's actually 31203.

My wife says her uncle played this instrument in a Russian folk orchestra in New York.

 

I'll be glad to answer any questions by e-mail, in preference to reading this site.

 

Thanks again,

alan

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...which led me to realize that I'd typed the serial # incorrectly; it's actually 31203.

The details I gave were for #31203; my eye must have shifted to the line with the 56-button instrument without my noticing. #31202 is essentially the same, except 48 buttons (doesn't go quite as high).

 

My wife says her uncle played this instrument in a Russian folk orchestra in New York.

If her uncle wasn't named Matusewitch, he must at least have known the Matusewitches. I remember two of them (father & son or brothers, I don't remember) playing with such an orchestra in New York, but I think they both had ebony-ended instruments for that concert.

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Are there any pics of similar tortoiseshell concertinas out there? I've never seen one.

-Andy

 

Take a look at

http://hmi.homewood.net/bnick/

 

The second picture shows ends that look exactly like mine. (But mine has a black bellows).

The caption says it's amboyna wood; only the Wheatstone ledger page showing my serial number indicates that mine is tortoiseshell. Did they finish the amboyna wood to make it look like shell? Or is the photo caption wrong?

 

hummingbear

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I may be doing a little "creative imaging" but I believe there is a tortoise shell Aeola pictured on page 7 of Richard Carlin's English Concertina book. Alas, the picture is in black and white.

 

The swirls and light and dark variations of color in tortoise shell remind me of amboyna.

 

Perhaps Alan can post a picture?

 

Regards, Greg

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The second picture shows ends that look exactly like mine. (But mine has a black bellows).

The caption says it's amboyna wood; only the Wheatstone ledger page showing my serial number indicates that mine is tortoiseshell.   Did they finish the amboyna wood to make it look like shell? Or is the photo caption wrong?

Amboynawood is much lighter than it appears to be in the photograph, which is (like the rest of the photos on the website) very dark, and brown bellows would normally only be used wtth amboyna. On the other hand, all the tortoiseshell aeolas that I have seen (and I have owned two of them) have had black bellows.

 

I have heard doubts expressed about whether they used real tortoiseshell, or if it is something like celluloid, indeed they would have had great difficulty finding a large enough plate of tortoiseshell for the 72-key duet I once had (Wheatstone Director K.V. Chidley had made it for his wife).

 

Gold-plated fittings would be "standard" with such deluxe finishes.

 

Edited for clarification.

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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Take a look at

http://hmi.homewood.net/bnick/

The second picture shows ends that look exactly like mine. (But mine has a black bellows).

The caption says it's amboyna wood; only the Wheatstone ledger page showing my serial number indicates that mine is tortoiseshell.   Did they finish the amboyna wood to make it look like shell? Or is the photo caption wrong?

That picture looks to me like tortoise shell (TS). The "swirling" of the amboyna I've seen (and I just checked one that I have) tends to be on a smaller scale. TS can vary a lot in both patterning and color, and the color can be further "enhanced" by painting or dying the wood underneath, since parts of the TS are semi-transparent. I've seen one TS concertina where the darker color was nearly purple in a transparent brownish yellow, another where the colors were nearly orange and black, and a third where the color was quite red, due to scarlet paint underneath the TS. That last also had a red bellows. But I think the most common TS color (at least on concetinas) is what you see in that picture labelled "amboyna".

 

Edited to add this link, where the second picture is a TS Crane duet. As you can see, the coloring is different from the one labelled "amboyna".

Edited by JimLucas
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:) I'm really pleased with the friendly and helpful exchanges that have resulted from my posting here.

 

We sold the instrument to someone who will be playing it in much the same spirit as the original owner (Tania's uncle), making Tania very happy.

 

Several people asked for photos of the instrument. I've taken some shots and posted them

here.

 

It's been nice etalking with you.

 

Alan

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