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Duet concertina value?


rcr27

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40 minutes ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

are you sure it's rosewood after all? however, it could make a restauration project for you, gathering some experience asf.

Seems to be rosewood I doubt it’s mahogany. I paid £325 for it and restoring it would cost me a lot of money and time because there is a lot to do. But even if I restore it and then want to sell it, I could only sell it for around £500, so I’d be loosing money. I’ll just return it hopefully eBay protects the buyer.

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4 hours ago, rcr27 said:

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:

 

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I guess it depends on what you had to give for it.

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Mine was, in some ways, probably worse.  A bit of time and effort and I love it now.  The woodwork is all fairly straight forwards with basic tools.  It plays really nicely. 

 

Yours will almost certainly be Mahogany under the 'crud' and if re-finished unstained comes up well.

 

 CBE.jpg

A3.jpg

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3 minutes ago, Sprunghub said:

Mine was, in some ways, probably worse.  A bit of time and effort and I love it now.  The woodwork is all fairly straight forwards with basic tools.  It plays really nicely. 

 

Yours will almost certainly be Mahogany under the 'crud' and if re-finished unstained comes up well.

 

 CBE.jpg

A3.jpg

How much did you buy yours for?

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I paid more than I wanted at around £275 in a Uk Auction.  It was chased up by A.N.Other interested bidder, which was a shame at the time!  The only compensation being that no matter how stupid I was to spend that much someone else was nearly as stupid as me !!  I would not have gone much higher, although I am very happy now that I didn't bale earlier.

I did have the advantage of having a chance, due to a South Coast Festival to Festival run of seeing it and assessing what needed doing to it before purchase.  I knew it was a bit of a 'crock', but I also thought I could cope with most of the issues - silent reeds, x2 sounding, sticky buttons, small leaks, woodwork, lost parts, philharmonic'ish tuning etc.  I used a phone bid to keep costs down, then had a detour to collect from Salisbury, to Bridport, then to Verwood on a late summer Friday which was probably the worst bit ! 

 

But I enjoy the fettling and 'learning' as much as anything so it didn't bother me too much.  The Forum aided and educated me in getting it tuned etc. and Alex is a wealth of practical help.  I see these instruments - outside of the metal work, which is beyond me - as fairly artisanal, so not much that can't be fixed if you have the kit and nouse. 

If I did another I would invest in the 'punches' and make my own valves and pads, which I suspect could be sourced/bought for not much more than the cost of parts to do 'one'.  The materials to make them are not hard or expensive to source.  

I think that the original listing for yours  hinted at most of the issues/disappointments, to be honest.  It was 'vague' and limited with fairly poor photos.  As with the Crabb E/C you posted about, which looked as if it may may have been a Lachenal re-marked by Crabb after resto. work, the Net is a risky place to buy, especially for those of us who are 'inexpert' and wing it a bit!

 

There are bargains about, I paid itro £380 for my wife's virtually unused CC Clover - mainly due, I think to an Ebay listing 'glitch' by the seller.

 

I now live in hope of a 48 / 55 button quality Crane "damaged/repair, in bit's, but all there" !! for sensible money, or one listed in one of those "Old squeezebox" / "Trumph Concretiner" listings that evades the usual suspects regular searches!  Hopefully the seller will be honourable if you do decide to return it as contrary to the original description. 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Old-Antique-Concertina-/382723643838?ul_noapp=true&nma=true&si=LpU8CWDUS4AwSKCj7h38nk0fGQM%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

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13 minutes ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

 

...but the winning bit is indicated as having been £99 (the starting price obviously) - do I miss something?

No I made an offer of £325 for it and the seller accepted it (he wanted £400!) I didn’t “bid” on it but it ebay marks it as if I bidded, and £99 is due to the starting price of the auction. A bit confusing I know

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44 minutes ago, Sprunghub said:

I paid more than I wanted at around £275 in a Uk Auction.  It was chased up by A.N.Other interested bidder, which was a shame at the time!  The only compensation being that no matter how stupid I was to spend that much someone else was nearly as stupid as me !!  I would not have gone much higher, although I am very happy now that I didn't bale earlier.

I did have the advantage of having a chance, due to a South Coast Festival to Festival run of seeing it and assessing what needed doing to it before purchase.  I knew it was a bit of a 'crock', but I also thought I could cope with most of the issues - silent reeds, x2 sounding, sticky buttons, small leaks, woodwork, lost parts, philharmonic'ish tuning etc.  I used a phone bid to keep costs down, then had a detour to collect from Salisbury, to Bridport, then to Verwood on a late summer Friday which was probably the worst bit ! 

 

But I enjoy the fettling and 'learning' as much as anything so it didn't bother me too much.  The Forum aided and educated me in getting it tuned etc. and Alex is a wealth of practical help.  I see these instruments - outside of the metal work, which is beyond me - as fairly artisanal, so not much that can't be fixed if you have the kit and nouse. 

If I did another I would invest in the 'punches' and make my own valves and pads, which I suspect could be sourced/bought for not much more than the cost of parts to do 'one'.  The materials to make them are not hard or expensive to source.  

I think that the original listing for yours  hinted at most of the issues/disappointments, to be honest.  It was 'vague' and limited with fairly poor photos.  As with the Crabb E/C you posted about, which looked as if it may may have been a Lachenal re-marked by Crabb after resto. work, the Net is a risky place to buy, especially for those of us who are 'inexpert' and wing it a bit!

 

There are bargains about, I paid itro £380 for my wife's virtually unused CC Clover - mainly due, I think to an Ebay listing 'glitch' by the seller.

 

I now live in hope of a 48 / 55 button quality Crane "damaged/repair, in bit's, but all there" !! for sensible money, or one listed in one of those "Old squeezebox" / "Trumph Concretiner" listings that evades the usual suspects regular searches!  Hopefully the seller will be honourable if you do decide to return it as contrary to the original description. 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Old-Antique-Concertina-/382723643838?ul_noapp=true&nma=true&si=LpU8CWDUS4AwSKCj7h38nk0fGQM%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The good thing is that you could check the condition prior to buying it. If only I had the opportunity to know what the condition of the condition of the concertina was I wouldn’t have bought it at all. Mine is even worse, almost unplayable and too much air leaks. It pretty much needs a full tlc with new everything (new fretwork, buttons, valves, pads, springs, bellows, straps... etc). As much I want to get some experience with restoring concertinas the best thing to do is just return it as I wouldn’t be able to restore it myself and it would cost me more than concertina itself. Yes the EC Crabb that I posted was a Lachenal labeled Crabb. I part-exchanged it with Chris Algar for another concertina, but at least that one was playable and worth the price. 

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2 hours ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

 

...but the winning bit is indicated as having been £99 (the starting price obviously) - do I miss something?

....the seller having paid end of listing fee's on a £99 "sale" rather than the % of £325 he owed to Ebay.  If rcr needs a bit of leverage it might be useful.  The chap has an into the 1,000's history of all sorts and looks to me to be someone who buys locally from Sales/Auctions then re-sells to a WW market via Ebay.  An honourable enough past-time but generally without much knowledge of some of the items at hand.  He has an EC listed currently at a sensible enough price.

 

Sadly, it does look a big job to take on.  Major metal issues and extensive 'bellows' work would probably put me off.  ...although bellows making is on my radar should I need to learn for that decrepit 55k one which may, one day, turn up!  The rest of it should be pretty much do-able.  In case it helps, I have leather ( for straps ), almost a full set of springs - brand new from Mark L-A, and the 3mm ply ( to be reduced to 1.5mm ) to strengthen the ends.  If you do decide to have a go, you are welcome to any of the above for a very negligible / discounted cost ( if not free ! ) You can borrow my tuning table too, if practical although I think you are a fair way off.  

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2 hours ago, Sprunghub said:

....the seller having paid end of listing fee's on a £99 "sale" rather than the % of £325 he owed to Ebay.  If rcr needs a bit of leverage it might be useful.  The chap has an into the 1,000's history of all sorts and looks to me to be someone who buys locally from Sales/Auctions then re-sells to a WW market via Ebay.  An honourable enough past-time but generally without much knowledge of some of the items at hand.  He has an EC listed currently at a sensible enough price.

 

Sadly, it does look a big job to take on.  Major metal issues and extensive 'bellows' work would probably put me off.  ...although bellows making is on my radar should I need to learn for that decrepit 55k one which may, one day, turn up!  The rest of it should be pretty much do-able.  In case it helps, I have leather ( for straps ), almost a full set of springs - brand new from Mark L-A, and the 3mm ply ( to be reduced to 1.5mm ) to strengthen the ends.  If you do decide to have a go, you are welcome to any of the above for a very negligible / discounted cost ( if not free ! ) You can borrow my tuning table too, if practical although I think you are a fair way off.  

Hopefully the seller wasn’t a diehard person and we sorted out the return already. He clearly doesn’t know anything about concertinas and yet he said the description was correct when there wasn’t any description at all! Thanks very much for your offers, although I returned the concertina already, I might buy another concertina from an auction in the next couple of weeks/months, and if I need new spares I will let you know as I want to get some experience repairing. 

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40 minutes ago, Sprunghub said:

RCR27 - I have put a clip on of what mine sounds like - would be better in the hands of someone more competent !  It's in the playing section.  A poor attempt to emulate Little John's work, but getting better with time.  

I’ll have a look now, by the way is yours a 35 key?

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Actually, I was poking at springhub, but if you're interested ...  The Wheatstone in question is a 48.  Since I have a Lachenal 48, I don't need two.  Greg Jowaisas had a 35 that I'm getting at the end of the month.  I've since had it gone over and repaired the handle on the case.

 

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Edited by saguaro_squeezer
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