Lachenal EC manufacturing date?

[SteveS]

Here is a Lachenal EC with a date written inside.

 

Serial number 5876, February 1869.

 

May prove useful in placing a data point on the Lachenal manufacturing continuum - if indeed it is a manufacturing or original acquisition date.

[wes williams]

Thanks for the heads up Steve,

That date is around 10 years later than our current estimate of circa 1859 for this instrument. Current research suggests that Lachenal started numbering his own make English concertinas starting at 5000 in 1858. The 1869 date is much nearer 1873 when Louis Lachenal became Lachenal & Co, and we have lots of evidence of the label changing around the serial number 18000 for English concertinas. So the inscription points to an acquisition date rather than a  manufacturing date.