Novitat Accordian

[trutter]

I recently became the 'proud' owner of a 'Novitat Accordian' (ten button) from about the turn of the centurey. Engraved on the front panel is 'German Shutz - Marke Manufacture'. It's in pretty bad shape. The kind you mignt save for spare parts. It's pretty crude inside. The wood looks like rough cut cedar shake material. The outside probably was pretty fancy when it was new. It has two bass keys with three reeds on one and two reeds on the other. It has two sets of trebble reeds with a slide to turn one off. Probably for wet effect, volume or tremulo. The other side button does not appear to be connected. I would like to hear it sing again???? Does anyone have any information, or can point me in the right direction? Is it possible to date this little jewel? Tom

Edited October 24, 2005 by trutter

[Stephen Chambers]

Tom,

 

What you have seems to be the bulk of a fairly typical "German accordion" ("Deutsche Harmonika"), otherwise known as a melodeon. I have seen various models of Novitat come up on eBay over the last few years, and I think I have bought a couple of them for my collection, but those are all in storage at the moment. They are from the late 19th/early 20th century in date, so it is probably about 100 years old. If I remember correctly, the S of the Trade Mark looks like a snake ?

 

It was quite normal for the second stop of a 2-stopper to be a dummy as you never play on the other tremolo reeds alone. Unfortunately, the only way you can get parts for an instrument like this is by scrapping another example (if you can find one the same !), indeed they were inexpensive and not expected to last very long when they were new anyway.

[trutter]

""Tom,--------------------- If I remember correctly, the S of the Trade Mark looks like a snake ?""

 

Yeh, a snake around a sword or candle stick. Most likely a sword.

 

It was played on the boat to New York and then upstate.

 

Couple questions, if I may?

 

The reeds appear to be brass in a zink frame. The zink frames seem to be embedded in a wax - possibly bees wax or bee glue?

 

When you scrape down the wood frames in the bellows do you have to go down to the absolute bare wood or can you leave just a trace of the old glue and paper? What has been your experience?

 

The original unit had large metal buttons. I would like to replace them with wood buttons a little larger then then the treble buttons. In normal playing do you have to really pound the bass buttons or can you be a little gentler?

 

I plan on rebuilding this unit just for my own satisfaction. As you mentioned they were inexpensive but the mechanisms seem to be quite sturdy.

 

Thanks - Tom