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A Crane That Didn't Fly


frogspawn

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I note this Crane on Ebay

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-Lachenal-Edeophone-55-Key-Crane-Triumph-Duet-Concertina-Concert-Pitch-/251263120596?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Keyboard_RL&hash=item3a8072f4d4

 

didn't attract any bids. I bought mine for about this amount (£1500) in 2006, but it's not an Edeophone. I suppose it's the recession.

 

Richard

Edited by frogspawn
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Why should a crane just fly? :ph34r:

 

But seriously, I wouldn't believe just a recession to prevent music making people from buying their instrument (they might rather spare other things).

 

However, it might apply to collectors regarding their already inflated fleet... (which might be considered as good news for the "poor" musician then).

 

Hard to tell...

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I would rather suggest that there are not enough Duet players out there to stimulate a 'Market'.

 

This may very well be. But OTOH I'm under the impression that at least regarding English concertinas there has occured a quite similar decline of selling prices...

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I would rather suggest that there are not enough Duet players out there to stimulate a 'Market'.

 

This may very well be. But OTOH I'm under the impression that at least regarding English concertinas there has occured a quite similar decline of selling prices...

 

True. Time to buy :) Hmm I'd better earn some money quick!

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I would rather suggest that there are not enough Duet players out there to stimulate a 'Market'. An Auction with one bidder is not an auction really. The last few duets that Chris Algar has put up on eBay have not recieved any bids.

Strangely, someone recently said that larger better duets, the 65-75 key region, was selling very well at the moment and prices for these were going up (but the market for 57-62 was remaining a bit weak). I find this odd because in general I've noticed that most medium-large duets, whether medium or large, put on ebay over the last few years, often at very reasonable prices, have failed to sell.

 

Indeed the market is very thin, a term which describes a situation where the number of buyers and sellers are small. In thin markets, the number of people actively looking at one time, either to buy or sell, is small. So buyers tend to be as disappointed about the lack of things available for them to buy as are sellers about the lack of people to buy what they have to sell, during those, often fairly brief, periods when they are putting effort into one or the other.

 

But a little while ago people wanting to buy a Crane turned up much more often than those wanting to sell one. Someone turning up with one to sell usually didn't have to wait long to find a buyer, unlike buyers who could spend a year trying to find an instrument someone else hadn't got to first. But when concertinas rather better than the usual turn up, we need to bear in mind that there will often be a large potential market - people who have a concertina of more usual quality already and will upgrade at the appropriate time and represent a large continuiing potential market. That a Crane Edeophone 55-key would attract no interest at £1500 suggests that even those people aren't interested.

 

I think there is also a broad phenomenon that most kinds of luxury and antique objects have a weak market at present, unless they happen to be just the thing that rich Chinese or Russians want.

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But when concertinas rather better than the usual turn up, we need to bear in mind that there will often be a large potential market - people who have a concertina of more usual quality already and will upgrade at the appropriate time and represent a large continuiing potential market. That a Crane Edeophone 55-key would attract no interest at £1500 suggests that even those people aren't interested.

 

Well, I would be one of "those people" in this case, since I play a 48-button Lachenal Crane that's one or two models below this one and I could use the extra buttons. I watched this auction and thought about bidding...but I'm otherwise happy with the one I've got, and I was recently at an event with someone who has an English Edeophone that she's not very happy with, and I sometimes think that I might want even more buttons than 55 (I know that's hard to find on a Crane), and even at this quite reasonable price this is still a fair amount of money to spend to get a few more buttons and I don't know how easy it would be to recoup some of that by trying to sell my current Crane in the current market. So I didn't bid in the end.

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That a Crane Edeophone 55-key would attract no interest at £1500 suggests that even those people aren't interested.

 

Well, I would be one of "those people" in this case, since I play a 48-button Lachenal Crane that's one or two models below this one and I could use the extra buttons. I watched this auction and thought about bidding...but I'm otherwise happy with the one I've got, and I was recently at an event with someone who has an English Edeophone that she's not very happy with, and I sometimes think that I might want even more buttons than 55 (I know that's hard to find on a Crane), and even at this quite reasonable price this is still a fair amount of money to spend to get a few more buttons and I don't know how easy it would be to recoup some of that by trying to sell my current Crane in the current market. So I didn't bid in the end.

 

Ironically, I missed this auction because I was preparing for and attending a Concertina Weekend while it was on. And, even more ironically, my "preparation" involved tinkering with my 48-button Lachenal Crane to get two of the buttons working cleanly (the D and G buttons in the centre of the right side, which have awkwardly curved levers). At the Weekend, I saw two Cranes superior to mine, a Wheatstone 55-b and a Lachenal 55-b with raised ends (both in sober Sally Army black).

 

Had the auction still been on when I returned home and saw this posting, I don't know what I'd have done.

On one hand, I have these mechanical problems with 2 levers on my 48-b, and I occasionally run off the top of the left-hand keyboard when looking for a higher F chord. So a superior-quality 55-b model - especially such a good-looking one - is tempting. The price is more than I paid for my 48-b Lachenal a couple of years ago, but that seems justified for the better instrument. The problem is, can I justify the expense of owning two Cranes, when I've only got one pair of hands? Of course, I could try and sell the old one, but, considering the market, would I get rid of it, and for how much? Any financial loss on the old instrument would make the new one more expensive.

 

So, basically, I'd love to upgrade, but with the "thin" market for Cranes, I'm unsure of being able to sell my old one at the same time as (or very soon after) I buy a new one. I suppose my uncertainty makes the market even "thinner," for both sellers and buyers.

 

Does anyone know if dealers in vintage instruments (like Chris Algar) do part exchange - taking an inferior vintage instrument in part payment for an superior vintage instrument?

 

Cheers,

John

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  • 1 month later...

It's handy to have two if one needs to be sent away for repair. Until retiring recently, I also used to keep one at home and one in work so I could play in my lunch hour. I now keep one upstairs and one downstairs!

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Why should a crane just fly? :ph34r:

 

 

There's not only cranes for drivers but those Grus grus creatures as well; shame on me for another quick shot... :huh:

 

WIe Friedrich Schiller schon schrieb:

 

"Sieh da, sieh da, Timotheus,

die Crane Duets des Ibykus!"

 

Cheers,

John

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Why should a crane just fly? :ph34r:

 

 

There's not only cranes for drivers but those Grus grus creatures as well; shame on me for another quick shot... :huh:

 

WIe Friedrich Schiller schon schrieb:

 

"Sieh da, sieh da, Timotheus,

die Crane Duets des Ibykus!"

 

Cheers,

John

 

The murderers hadn't apparently been aware of the value of these instruments (in which case they wouldn't have let them fly)...

 

And Jim, thank you for the tutoring... :D

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