Crabb 30 Key At Auction

[Alex West]

With the usual caveats about swallows and summers, a 30 bone-buttoned metal ended Crabb just sold for a hammer price of £2,400 at an auction in England. With buyers premium and VAT, that gets you to £2,832 and a modest amount of refurbishment and tuning gives you a ready to play price of close to £3,500.

 

Since the 39 key Jeffries in Ireland (mentioned in another thread) failed to sell on ebay at £3,896, that could indicate a very good price for the Crabb, a narrowing of the gap between Crabb and Jeffries, or that either one of them is an anomaly.

 

I hope the buyer knew what he or she was getting and that teh Crabb turns out to be a good one!

 

Alex West

[RP3]

Alex, as a point of reference, I sold a 30 button Anglo "Rushworth & Draeper" Crabb around 2002 for the US equivalent of £3,700 and a very good player it was indeed. Like the one you mentioned, this one too was a bone button/metal ended model. Just goes to show that there are and have been fine Crabb models floating around out there and people willing to pay a serious price to acquire same.

 

Several interesting questions to ponder as a result of the failure of the Jeffries in question to sell on eBay (the absence of adequate photo information notwithstanding) are these:

 

Are 38 button Jeffries Anglos less desirable than 30 button ones?

Do current buyers prefer bone button Jeffries models to metal buttoned ones?

Has eBay become an unwelcome place to sell concertinas?

Has the market become so weak that even a model from a prized maker can't sell for a very reasonable price?

 

I have my own opinions on these issues. And maybe I have failed to pose the right questions all together? What do others think?

 

Ross Schlabach