Unusual Jones

[Greg Jowaisas]

Here are some pictures of an unusual (to me) Jones. It came to me in a dilapidated state but with a little patience was recently refurbished and placed in a new home. It has a fairly early serial # of 5162.

 

Fortunately the amboyna sides polished up nicely and only required two small patches. The 7-fold brown bellows were purchased from Peter O'Conner of Co. Kerry and I did the gold stamping on my old (new to me) eBay auction stamping machine. The bellows papers were supplied by Rosalie Dipper (many thanks to the Dippers).

 

The two drone buttons are a middle 'C' and a 'd' an octave above middle C. I replaced the two left hand novelty noises with usable notes.

 

The original bellows were a blue green and stamped with gold tooling I associate with Jones (although I've also seen Jones bellows with this stamp we usually associate with Jeffries.)

 

Has anyone seen a similar metal end Jones? The rosewood 34b Jones pop up on ebay once or twice a year but I only dimly recall seeing one similar metal end Jones on eBay over the past 10 years.

 

Greg

 

 

[Mike Franch]

Gorgeous!

 

But I gotta ask: what sounds did the two removed novelty buttons make? And what did you do with the novelty reeds or whatever made the sounds?

Edited April 15, 2015 by Mike Franch

[CrP]

That's a handsome instrument. Maybe just a bit of an eyecatcher, too.

[nkgibbs]

Greg,

A beautiful instrument and quite similar to one that I have in a pre-restored state. You will notice the wooden air valve lever which suggests that it is very early…..

 

 

 

I realise that this is half a story but when I bought the concertina shown above, I trawled the internet and found the following picture…….the problem is I can't find out now which webpage I got it from! Anyway, if it isn't your concertina, it suggests that there is another one out there !!

 

 

Best regards,

Neil

[Greg Jowaisas]

Hi Neil,

The second pic is indeed one I took of what the Jones looked like before restoration. I recognize our couch pillows!!

 

Thanks for sharing. Love to see an end on shot of yours.

 

Greg

[Greg Jowaisas]

Hi Mike,

The two novelty sounds were a bird whistle and baby cry. The bird whistle is a disc/cylinder that sits in the action box and the baby's cry are little lead "trumpets" that are situated in a hole in the reed pan. I don't know how the whistle works but the baby's cry uses a very thin and distressed reed embedded in each trumpet.

 

Only one direction of the baby's cry was operational. Both novelties have joined the spares box.

 

Greg

[nkgibbs]

Dear Greg,

Here are face-on photos of the ends and also one of the bellows. Needs a good scrub !

 

 

 

 

Maybe there are only two out there………I'm sure that C.netters will correct this statement!

 

 

Best regards,

Neil

Edited April 15, 2015 by nkgibbs

[Greg Jowaisas]

Neil,

Thanks for the extra photos. Fascinating! 39 buttons? A close up and internal pics of the air button and indications of how it functions would be very interesting.

 

The instrument I worked on had the Jones "trap door" type air release. Much to my relief an additional layer of sealing leather was all the fiddling needed to make it airtight.

 

First time I've seen that design in the gold stamping on your bellows.

 

Greg

[Mike Franch]

I'll bet a bunch of us first saw our concertinas with those pillows in the background.

[Greg Jowaisas]

Mike,

Keep your eyes open. I believe you may be seeing the fancy Jones at one of your area gatherings.