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An English Diagnostic Problem


nkgibbs

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Not surprisingly, they've been trying to get that ridiculous price for it for a VERY long time - you'd think they might have realised by now that it's seriously overpriced!!! :unsure:

 

I mentioned the same instrument/listing here before, back in February 2014, in the Tidder Concertinas thread: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16347&p=154750 et seq.

 

I see the usual resident eBay "expert" about concertinas, who always gets it wrong, has struck again - attributing it to Lachenal in the 1850s, oh dear, there's absolutely NOTHING "Lachenal" about it! :rolleyes: More like "Tidder circa 1900"...

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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Stephen,

Apologies for not picking up on your previous post on this concertina……..the sellers seemed to have closed the original listing and then relisted at the same price ;)

 

I have a very similar instrument in my collection numbered 3277 and was unsure of its origin. It has all the features of the expensive ebay offering ………….including the bevelled, moulded upper edges to its box……..

 

post-937-0-11326000-1433496581_thumb.jpg

 

This isn't a scientific survey but I have no other boxes that possess this bevelled edge and wonder whether these moulded box edges are unique to Mr Tidder or whoever made the concertina? :o

 

Neil

 

 

PS The single, round lock pin/catch is also pretty unusual…...

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That listing shows up every time I look up "concertina" on Ebay. When I first saw the listing, over a year ago, I noticed that the area code is in the suburbs north of Boston, so they're only about 20 miles from me. I thought of driving up there to take a look. If the instrument's problems struck me as easily repairable, I thought I might try negotiating with the seller on price. But I decided not to bother after I looked closely at the photos they'd posted - not the ones at the top but the ones in the body of the description further down the page.

 

The fact that it needs new thumbstraps is blatantly obvious, but not too difficult to fix. The fact that someone who knows nothing about concertinas tried putting what appear to be handstraps for an Anglo onto an English means that they probably drilled a couple of holes into the bellows frames that really don't belong there, but those holes are probably small and easily plugged.

 

Of far greater concern is the sixth photo down where the instrument is vertical, with the right end at the top of the photo and the left end at the bottom. In the upper right of the photo you can see light between the button box and the bellows frame. That might mean that something's warped. No way to know without driving up there with a screwdriver and a straight-edge.

 

Scroll down about 8 photos to the picture showing the reed pan inside the bellows frame. Some parts of the bellows frame and some of the chamber dividers have been covered with leather that is not the original chamois. I bet this was just glued on top of the chamois, making those areas higher than the parts with just the chamois. If different parts of the top of the reedpan are different heights, it will leak between the chambers, and if the seal on some parts of the bellows frame is a different height it will lose air pressure there. Now scroll down another three photos and look at the inside of the left end. Someone's glued black leather around the edges of all 6 sides, but apparently given no thought to the fact that this is going to lift the end away from the tops of the chamber dividers, so all the chambers will leak into their adjacent chambers.

 

Clearly this instrument must have had leakage problems or there's no reason someone would have opened it up and done these ridiculous fixes that can only have made the situation worse.

 

I'd guess the instrument is probably refurbishable, but would require more work than makes any sense, given the asking price.

 

I seem to remember that when I happened upon this listing a year ago, the asking price was over $2,000. Now it's $1,560. If they continue to drop the asking price at that rate, it might be worth checking back a year or two from now to see if it's finally in a sensible range.

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