Lachenal - New Info?

[wes williams]

I've recently been going through Randy Merris's archive and came across a couple of things that might be of interest. If you look at the Lachenal Pricelists on concertina.com, item 4 on the date attribution list shows the telephone exchange going from Museum to Holborn, although no date of the change is given. We can now narrow that down to between July 1928 and November 1929, as shown from the receipts below.

July 1928 Receipt

November 1929 Receipt

I only know of one other price list which is circa 1912 and comes from Neil Wayne's Concertina Museum site (where 3 pages are shown). But you can download the full pricelist here. If anybody knows of any other Lachenal price lists, I'd love to hear about them.

 

The other thing is the introduction of the 'New Model'. Stephen Chamber's Lachenal Part 2 article has 28320:New Model, probably made about 1888 (CMC 106) . The database has 25521 as the earliest recorded New Model English. This would date to 1883/4 so perhaps this model was introduced to mark the 10th anniversary of the foundation of Lachenal & Co?

[Stephen Chambers]

18 hours ago, wes williams said:

If you look at the Lachenal Pricelists on concertina.com, item 4 on the date attribution list shows the telephone exchange going from Museum to Holborn, although no date of the change is given. We can now narrow that down to between July 1928 and November 1929, as shown from the receipts below.

July 1928 Receipt

November 1929 Receipt

 

Interesting, and probably a result of this momentous event:

 

 "At two minutes to midnight on Saturday, 12th November, 1927, a team of  operators at the Holborn Telephone Exchange stepped back from their  switchboards, held hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. The era of manually  connecting every call was coming to an end. At midnight, the system was cut to  automatic." (https://portalsoflondon.com/2019/10/08/whispering-wires-the-holborn-  telephone-exchange-crisis/)

 

It was the first exchange to change over in London, making connected telephones much easier to use, and probably why Lachenal's number changed in the aftermath.

 

 

18 hours ago, wes williams said:

I only know of one other price list which is circa 1912 and comes from Neil Wayne's Concertina Museum site (where 3 pages are shown). But you can download the full pricelist here. If anybody knows of any other Lachenal price lists, I'd love to hear about them.

 

Not a new one, but a more accurate date for the "c.1890" one overprinted with Joseph Astley's address. As I've shown in my article "Joseph Astley, Oldham Concertina Band and the MHJ Shield", Joseph Astley's previous addresses are known, up to 1895, before he moved into 188, Manchester Street, so c.1896 might be nearer to the mark.

 

18 hours ago, wes williams said:

The other thing is the introduction of the 'New Model'. Stephen Chamber's Lachenal Part 2 article has 28320:New Model, probably made about 1888 (CMC 106) . 

 

My point there was that English concertina number 28320 probably dated from 1888 because of the "Bowing Valves" Patent that it advertises, and I see it is still  allocated to that year in the dating estimates.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Stephen Chambers