Unusual Ebay Concertina

[DavePraties]

Anyone spotted this one? it looks like a piano keyboard variant.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Concertina/263342342431?hash=item3d506d411f:g:UmkAAOSwAHBaGAhH

[Takayuki YAGI]

It's Jedcertina, I think. http://www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00308.htm

[Wolf Molkentin]

I'm not sure that every concertina with a piano keyboard qualifies as "Jedcertina" (I seem to recall that are some German-made around that are of different ancestry, without there being much of a difference in the end).

 

First obvious downside is the very limited range.

 

Best wishes - Wolf

 

(edited due to typo)

Edited November 30, 2017 by Wolf Molkentin

[JimLucas]

It's Jedcertina, I think. http://www.concertinamuseum.com/CM00308.htm

 

From personal experience, I'm pretty sure the Jedi had nothing to do with that kind of concertina.

[mike byrne]

You can see the Jedcertina label in the last e-bay picture.

[Anglo-Irishman]

Mike,

All you can see of the label is "...CERTINA", but as there's no point in labelling a concertina "CONCERTINA", I'm sure the obscured letters are (the other) John E. Dallas' initials. The Lachenal trade mark and label, and the general appearance, conform to photos of Jedcertinas that I've seen.

 

Wolf,

Yes, there are German concertinas with piano layouts, e.g. the Rust System duets and the "Chromatische Konzertinas" with chords on the bass side. But from what I've seen of them, they have more buttons, so the range wouldn't have been as limited as the Jedcertina's with its mere 20 bisonoric buttons = 20 notes on the chromatic scale, or less than 2 octaves. The only added value of the Jedcertina over a "normal" Lachenal 20-button Anglo that I can see is that anyone who has had piano lessons - and back in the mid-20th century that was a lot of people - could pick out a tune, and even sight-read for it. So they could get the "cool" concertina sound without mastering the quirks of the push-pull Anglo or the left-right EC.

 

Perhaps there's an analogy to the banjo here. When the 5-string banjo was "cool", the industry developed the guitar-banjo for gutarists, the banjo-mandolin for mandolinists and the tenor banjo for viola players who didn't want to master the quirks of the short 5th string.

Of course, the short 5th string is the real heart of the banjo, being used in different ways but to equal effect by players of different styles. Just as the in-out of the Anglo gives "punch" and easy harmonies, and the left-right of the EC gives agility and triangular triads.

 

BTW, J.E. Dallas was a banjo-maker originally, but I'm not sure whether he also made guitar-banjos or banjo-mandolins. I haven't come across any information for or against this in the Internet - only photos of his 5-string normal banjos and zither-banjos.

 

Cheers,

John (E. Dallas)

 

(no relation!)