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Duet concertina value?


rcr27

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Hi all

I just recently acquired this duet concertina which I’ll be receiving very soon. It’s my first duet and I really don’t know much about this concertina system. This one in particular is a 35 key Crane duet concertina - likely to be a Lachenal - with ebony ends and metal buttons (and I’m guessing it has steel reeds). I just want to know what is the value of Crane duets on the market? I know for fact that duet concertinas are the rarest compared to the English and Anglo, so I just had this curiosity. I don’t pretend to sell it straight away as I want to learn to play it, (and I’ll have to repair it first) but I might want to part-exchange it in a near future for a bigger duet, so if you have any idea of the price of this particular duet I’d appreciate it.  

These are the most similar ones that I found. Lachenal:  http://www.craneconcertina.com/details.php?indexnum=42 Wheatstone: http://www.craneconcertina.com/details.php?indexnum=53

 

Regards

Roger

 

 

 

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As far as I can tell, there is no "market value" for a niche market such as duet concertinas. It always depends on how many (few) people are looking at any given time.

 

Your best bet is to ask Chris Algar how much he would sell the instrument for. In any case you'll need to be prepared to wait for a long time until somebody comes along who is looking for just that instrument. May well be several years.

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True not many people show interest of duet concertinas. I’m more likely to part-exchange it than to sell it then. I wonder if Chris has any bigger Crane I think 35 keys isn’t enough. Just one thing, are Crane duets very different from the other types (maccan and hayden)? 

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12 minutes ago, rcr27 said:

In terms of fingering and playability. Which one is the “easiest” or the most appropriate for someone who plays english concertina? 

 

uhm, no idea. I never played EC. Wolf will probably pitch in and tell you something about the transition from EC to Crane, but I don't know anybody who plays EC as well as more than one duet system. My guess would be that Crane and Hayden are closer to the EC than the McCann because of the keyboard logic, but the philosophies of duet (all layouts) and EC are very different to begin with.

Edited by RAc
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I had some contact with the Ebay seller last night because he didn't seem to know what he had.  G-d knows I am no expert but I have one so I at least knew what it was - he thought it was a 34 button missing one until I pointed out it was 35 with a deficit of 2 and a Crane and a Duet.    Ebon'ised as opposed to Ebony ? or dark lacquered ?  The images in the Ebay listing showed there might be some issues with the bellows corners and cracks in the ends around the handles which due to the fretwork design seems to create a  generic weak spot ?  I put a thread up with some pics etc re mending and tuning mine, which was in 'old' tuning.  I bought mine at Auction via a phone bid and ended up competing with someone who made it more expensive than it should have been really.  Chris Algar had one listed  at around £500  which sold recently.  Mine cost half that needing the re-tune and do'able work.  If I had wanted '2' I would probably have risked a couple of hundred pounds "unseen" on it knowing what I know now from working on mine,  because although those with 50 button + ones might 'sniff' ?, there aren't that many about and they aren't making them anymore !   That is as long as it hasn't been pre-butchered for parts or suffered serious corrosion issues ( or at least more serious than mine had )

I have dabbled (momentarily) with my wife's Anglo and have had a go on an English, I find the Crane much easier to pick up and hold a melody.  In all the folky stiff I want to play I struggle to find a note I haven't got that I need ( for melody )  I am learning to play both sides ( thanks mainly to cribbing Little John's videos ) using one 2 buttons one the left .  I personally find it fairly 'intuitive' despite having no musical knowledge other than what I can hear and replicate by repeated drilling and practice.  Having watched as many Crane videos as I can find and making no reference to what I can't see.........most of the buttons in larger instruments seem to remain largely untroubled for most if not nearly all of the time in song accompaniment and melody playing! 

 

Re those fret/end cracks.....they occur at either end of the handle....on mine one handle was missing - had pulled right off with a section of fret and been lost and at the other end it was well on it's way to going.  I have seen other 35b ones with the same symptoms......last night it looked as if this one may be going too.  I think it shows in the image you have entered.  I planed ( routed actually ) a piece of vintage mahogany the same thickness as the end then used a thin veneer to 'mend' the bad one and reinforce the other.

Edited by Sprunghub
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Yes the seller was selling it on behalf of someone else. Indeed there aren’t many Cranes about so I might just keep it or part exchange it with Chris Algar if he is interested. I guess I can just re-leather the bellows or at least use some corners patches. It’s likely to be out of tune so probably some revalving will be needed. Doesn’t seem to be that bad anyway, but yes there is certainly some work to do. 

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RAc and rcr27,

 

From my experience, more EC players try Crane than Anglo players since they're both unisonic and have a regularity of pattern in their layout.  The IS a market for Cranes or Chris wouldn't be able to command what he does for the ones that he sells, compared to Maccanns which some find daunting. 

 

A reasonable 35-key Crane in good fettle should bring around $750.  Like other duets, the more keys the merrier but even a 35 should be able to play in most keys ... albeit with some inversions in the chords.  There's a lot of music in an octave and a fourth ...

 

Just my opinion and worth, of course, what you've paid for it! 

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Value is sometimes dependent on the 'who by and where' it is being offered.  A few weeks before Xmas a Wheatstone 48 Button Crane - probably not from the 'best' period, it wasn't on on the early records.....1950's I would think, but very tidy;  brown finished wooden ends, metal buttons I think, with distinctive 'chocolate brown' bellows, in it's case and apparently little used was on offer at "about" £850 on the F/book Concertina's for sale page.  Being only days into fumbling with the 35 button I 'wondered' for a day or two and then decided that without the benefit of a lot more ability/experience, it wasn't sensible to pursue a 2nd instrument before working out how to handle the first.  

The Uk seller - via a long F/book presence clearly had an impeccable reputation in the Art's, albeit no real experience or knowledge of concertinas.  It wasn't on sale long and I would think it was a very good buy for someone.

As I progress, I probably wish I had been a bit more 'rash' ?  I doubt my wife agree's. 

Typically a similar instrument from a 'Dealer' would be nearly double and 'private sales' often seem to be based on seeking as close to Dealer values as possible.  Not that, that is a bad thing, just seems to be the case that many private sale valuations are based on what is available in Trade adverts, rather than a 30% discount as would be the case in many other fields.

 

Edited by Sprunghub
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43 minutes ago, Sprunghub said:

Value is sometimes dependent on the 'who by and where' it is being offered.  A few weeks before Xmas a Wheatstone 48 Button Crane - probably not from the 'best' period, it wasn't on on the early records.....1950's I would think, but very tidy;  brown finished wooden ends, metal buttons I think, with distinctive 'chocolate brown' bellows, in it's case and apparently little used was on offer at "about" £850 on the F/book Concertina's for sale page.  Being only days into fumbling with the 35 button I 'wondered' for a day or two and then decided that without the benefit of a lot more ability/experience, it wasn't sensible to pursue a 2nd instrument before working out how to handle the first.  

The Uk seller - via a long F/book presence clearly had an impeccable reputation in the Art's, albeit no real experience or knowledge of concertinas.  It wasn't on sale long and I would think it was a very good buy for someone.

As I progress, I probably wish I had been a bit more 'rash' ?  I doubt my wife agree's. 

Typically a similar instrument from a 'Dealer' would be nearly double and 'private sales' often seem to be based on seeking as close to Dealer values as possible.  Not that, that is a bad thing, just seems to be the case that many private sale valuations are based on what is available in Trade adverts, rather than a 30% discount as would be the case in many other fields.

 

Thanks for the information. I also doubted whether to buy that concertina or not, but since duets are rare I decided to have a go. Recently a Lachenal Maccann got sold on ebay for less than £200! but it was just like a tutor model. This one that I bought seems to have ebony ends and metal buttons, which made me think that the value would be higher. I guess the best thing to do is part-exchange it with Chris Algar for another concertina. 

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2 hours ago, Sprunghub said:

Value is sometimes dependent on the 'who by and where' it is being offered.  A few weeks before Xmas a Wheatstone 48 Button Crane - probably not from the 'best' period, it wasn't on on the early records.....1950's I would think, but very tidy;  brown finished wooden ends, metal buttons I think, with distinctive 'chocolate brown' bellows, in it's case and apparently little used was on offer at "about" £850 on the F/book Concertina's for sale page.  Being only days into fumbling with the 35 button I 'wondered' for a day or two and then decided that without the benefit of a lot more ability/experience, it wasn't sensible to pursue a 2nd instrument before working out how to handle the first.  

The Uk seller - via a long F/book presence clearly had an impeccable reputation in the Art's, albeit no real experience or knowledge of concertinas.  It wasn't on sale long and I would think it was a very good buy for someone.

As I progress, I probably wish I had been a bit more 'rash' ?  I doubt my wife agree's. 

Typically a similar instrument from a 'Dealer' would be nearly double and 'private sales' often seem to be based on seeking as close to Dealer values as possible.  Not that, that is a bad thing, just seems to be the case that many private sale valuations are based on what is available in Trade adverts, rather than a 30% discount as would be the case in many other fields.

 

I bought that one, Springhub, since I had been looking for a 35key Wheatstone and had not been able to find one.  It was a model 1-T, 48 keys, plastic buttons but after some minor cleaning it plays pretty nicely.  The seller was very easy to work with.

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1 hour ago, rcr27 said:

This one that I bought seems to have ebony ends and metal buttons,

 

The photos you posted show bone buttons, and dark, almost black wood which I suspect might be black painted.   Sometimes Salvation Army concertinas (many of which were Crane system) were painted black to tone down their appearance.  I have one like this myself.

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14 minutes ago, Theo said:

 

The photos you posted show bone buttons, and dark, almost black wood which I suspect might be black painted.   Sometimes Salvation Army concertinas (many of which were Crane system) were painted black to tone down their appearance.  I have one like this myself.

Could be a possibility, I had an english concertina with what seemed to be painted wood, but it ended up being actual ebony. I will take and post more pictures when it arrives.

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1 hour ago, saguaro_squeezer said:

I bought that one, Springhub, since I had been looking for a 35key Wheatstone and had not been able to find one.  It was a model 1-T, 48 keys, plastic buttons but after some minor cleaning it plays pretty nicely.  The seller was very easy to work with.

 My wife say's well done ?  temptation removed.

 

 

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On 1/12/2019 at 6:49 PM, RAc said:

 

Wolf will probably pitch in and tell you something about the transition from EC to Crane, but I don't know anybody who plays EC as well as more than one duet system. My guess would be that Crane and Hayden are closer to the EC than the McCann because of the keyboard logic, but the philosophies of duet (all layouts) and EC are very different to begin with.

 

Well, I'm just playing EC, Anglo and one Duet system - the Crane. EC is my main instrument, a 20b Anglo I can play in a modest, decent way - and with the Crane I'm still very much a (self-teaching) learner (with ambitions...).

 

On this basis, I would in fact make the claim that EC and Crane Duet are closely related (albeit they say that the MacCann has also been derived from the EC). Of course the Crane has no left-right alteration, but the four ("white") center rows of the English's left and right hand side integrated into the Crane's three center rows, thus leaving less space for accidentals and therefore limited (but not too much so) in its range without "breaking the pattern".

 

If you would be playing a Crabb Crane (having the "shevron layout") you would have the Cmaj/Amin scale in perfect diagonal rows; on your Lachenal you would be able to detect this order in a slightly bent shape. So the Crane can feel very much like an EC with a different allocation of the buttons IMO: of course not so easily allowing for rapid scale runs, but intuitively accessible for an EC player.

 

Others might disgree though.

 

Best wishes - ?

 

Edited by Wolf Molkentin
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What a joke... what seemed to be an ebony ended duet with metal buttons ended up being a dark rosewood with dirty bone buttons and in poor condition ? Deteriorated straps, cracks in the fretwork, keys producing 2 sounds, air leaks, very out of tune... and so on. Incredible how the light in the picture made this concertina look so different. Anyways I’m not even going to bother opening it, I’ll just return it as Im sure nobody in here would want this thing. See the pictures:

 

image.jpg

image.jpg

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