Can This Jeffries Be Saved?

[Alex West]

As has been said in previous threads, the market decides the price and, as high as $5350 sounds, it doesn't seem totally out of line.

 

I did a quick estimate of costs - obviously individual's circumstances would vary, but here goes, assuming a UK buyer. In adddition to the purchase price, there's the cost of money transfer - bank charges and exchange costs. There are also freight costs and import VAT - which fortunately would be 5% as it's over 100 years old and therefore an antique. This lot would push the cost up by £230 before getting it into the UK.

 

As to repair, assuming a fully professional job, an action rebuild is going to be of the order of £200 with straightforward tuning at around £250. A replacement reed could be £5-10 and bellows I'm guessing at, but they could be £300 or so. The work required to get the reeds in a state for tuning could be over £100 and if the instrument is in an old pitch, then allow a bit more for extra tuning time. The action pan crack is going to take a bit of work to make it look beautiful and the exterior woodwork needs a bit of work - say £50 as an estimate?

 

There may be other things go wrong during the repairs which would push the cost up and there's the cost of shipping to and from a repairer.

 

The total comes to around £4300 - and for that you've got a fully restored smart looking modern pitch C Jeffries 39 metal button concertina. If you're a player, you've possibly saved a bit on the cost of a pristine one from the market assuming it plays well at the end of all the work. If you can do the work yourself to an acceptable standard, the costs would be less. If you're a dealer, you'll be looking for a profit - and I've no idea what the mark-up might be.

 

Alex West

[Paul Read]

My concern would be the condition of the reeds. The value of a Jeffries is in the reeds and this one had a few that were likely to be beyond saving. GBP4300 would get a nice restored one from a dealer I suspect.

[Daniel Hersh]

I would tend to agree. Chris Algar gives a price of "£3750+ for any decent old Wheatstone or Jeffries concertina (prices £sterling at Jan 2006)" on his site. And then you would have a concertina dealer with an excellent reputation standing behind the instrument, rather than an eBay gamble from an antique merchant. Not that I haven't made plenty of eBay gambles myself...but this is an awful lot of money to risk.

 

Daniel

 

My concern would be the condition of the reeds. The value of a Jeffries is in the reeds and this one had a few that were likely to be beyond saving. GBP4300 would get a nice restored one from a dealer I suspect.

[Pete Dickey]

A 30 Key CG fairly recently made £5,500 in Ireland in decent condition. On the back of that I had toyed with a reconditioned figure of around £4500 - £5000 for this one as I felt that it would not be quite as popular as a 30 Key. I roughed out a repair cost of say £1000 to include new bellows and one or two reeds and consequently had reckoned on a final figure of £3000 to £3200. At £3050 I felt it wasn't too bad a buy given the present market. The buyer appears to be a dealer and can be seen bidding quite often.

 

Pete