Help me identify this old concertina

[defnotabirb]

Hey all. Got this old concertina from a family member and was wondering if anyone could help me identify it?

 

It has no markings on it to tell who made it. There is a medallion on the from that looks like an eagle on a rock. There are also some Anglo looking faces on it as well. Please refer to the photos.

 

Any help you could provide is much appreciated.

 

Thanks!

Adam

 

https://files.fm/u/hh9xvh44s

[Squeezebox Of Delights]

Hi Adam,

 

For a start, that's a beautiful instrument - but it's not a concertina! It's a melodeon, otherwise known as a diatonic button accordion. Yours looks was almost certainly built in Germany, probably Klingenthal, somewhere between the late 1800s and mid 1900s. I'd maybe put it around the 1920s-30s? I'm not an expert though. Usually these instruments aren't worth a vast amount, but they're good fun to play, and pretty attractive objects. Yours isn't a design I'm familiar with. Those pressed metal faces seem rather unusual.

The people on here tend to be pretty knowledgeable regarding all sorts of free-reed instruments, but if you want more information your best bet is probably to ask the people on melodeon.net. They specialise in this sort of thing!

 

Oskar

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Yes it's a melodeon; one of the one row variety. I have a book somewhere showing its general range, which was for other melodeon accordions too. I think they are quite straightforward to play, which does not that mean you cannot get a good tune from them.

 

[Stephen Chambers]

On 1/30/2023 at 7:18 PM, defnotabirb said:

There is a medallion on the from that looks like an eagle on a rock.

 

That looks very much like a variant of the eagle on a rock trade mark of C. F. Dörfel‑Steinfelser & Co. of Klingenthal.

 

Stylistically it probably dates from the 1880s.