Interesting Anglo On Ebay ...

[Anthony Cipolone]

I don't know a thing about Anglos, but I'm always scanning eBay for concertinas, and this one came up. Really interesting, and given that it has 9 days left and already so many bids, I can only imagine what it'll go for:

 

Anglo Concertina/Bandonion mix #220077002748

 

Any idea why a similar setup to this never picked up in regular concertina construction? Is is possible (or has it be done) to set up an English in a similar style?

 

- Anthony

[mthatcher61]

I don't know where the Bandoneon reference comes in but that is a cheapo German. With the 'solid made wooden mechanics ' ie cheapo guano. It looks like it might be a decent toy. The 'pearl' buttons are neat and it might even make some funky noise with it too. I have one similar that I use as a paperweight on my desk. I have the bone buttons though and most of them are gone. 8 fold bellows too.

The box looks wicked cool though.

[Dirge]

I thought that too, but wasn't quite confident enough to write it. I couldn't help admiring the magnificent sales pitch, though, even if I did suspect it of being deceitful. I know nothing about bandoneons. Is it even slightly true?

[ocd]

I don't know where the Bandoneon reference comes in but that is a cheapo German. With the 'solid made wooden mechanics ' ie cheapo guano. It looks like it might be a decent toy. The 'pearl' buttons are neat and it might even make some funky noise with it too. I have one similar that I use as a paperweight on my desk. I have the bone buttons though and most of them are gone. 8 fold bellows too.

The box looks wicked cool though.

 

I wrote to the seller asking for the tuning. It is bandoneon in the sense that the first row is tuned in G; the second row is tuned in A; and the third is a sprinkling of unrelated notes. I understand that the core of the bandoneon (and chemnitzer) layout is also like this: the two main rows are tuned one tone apart rather than a fifth as in an anglo concertina. The reeds are also setup in a metal plate (zinc?) as in a bandoneon. Of course, a real bandoneon would have two reeds per note one octave apart.

 

ocd

[Daniel Hersh]

Here's my take on some of the issues raised here. Others may have different perspectives...

 

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the German wooden-lever approach to action design. It's a bit noisier that British wire-type action, and it requires glue joints that can start to fail after 90 or 100 years. But when well-built it's sturdy and quick, and the big rectangular pads work well for the multiple reeds in what Ted Kloba calls an LSGC [Large Square German Concertina] such as a bandoneon. (However, I can't speak to the quality of workmanship on this one, and my sense is that small German six-sided concertinas were not usually as well-made as the big square ones.)

 

One downside: the wooden action is bulky. If you tried to use that type of action for the 48 buttons of an English you'd have a pretty big concertina, certainly a lot larger than we're used to in an English.

 

This one, with its G/A tuning, is definitely an interesting hybrid. I've not heard of a small six-sided concertina with that tuning before.

 

This style of construction (wooden levers, long-plate reeds) was standard in German concertina making for many decades, I believe up through the 1930's at least. It was developed independently from and existed parallel to the British approach of wire levers and individual reeds in slots on reed pans.

 

Daniel

 

I don't know a thing about Anglos, but I'm always scanning eBay for concertinas, and this one came up. Really interesting, and given that it has 9 days left and already so many bids, I can only imagine what it'll go for:

 

Anglo Concertina/Bandonion mix #220077002748

 

Any idea why a similar setup to this never picked up in regular concertina construction? Is is possible (or has it be done) to set up an English in a similar style?

 

- Anthony

[Anthony Cipolone]

You learn something new every day. I was just fascinated because I had never seen anything like it before. I've read up on bandonion construction, but have never seen the wooden mechanics in a small box like this.

 

And speaking of which, how come bandonions never adapted the metal levers that concertinas use? It seems like even today they're made with wood. Wouldn't the metal levers be more effective or responsive?

 

Then again, there's always the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, which makes complete sense to me.

 

- Anthony

[ocd]

And speaking of which, how come bandonions never adapted the metal levers that concertinas use? It seems like even today they're made with wood. Wouldn't the metal levers be more effective or responsive?

 

Harry Geuns makes an aluminum bandoneon action. (There are pictures in his web site

 

http://www.bandoneon-maker.com/bandonions.htm

 

that can be seen by chasing the "action" link.) The pictures are not detailed enough to be able to tell for sure, but it seems that he keeps the geometry of the wooden action while replacing the wooden levers with aluminum levers.

 

The metal lever action is more flexible in that it allows more latitude in the relative placing between button and pad. But the wooden action is not all that less efficient in its use of real-estate. Looking at a bandoneon innards most of the surface is taken by the buttons and the pads, which have to be there. The overhead from the wooden action (mostly on the pivot assembly) does not seem all that large, though it is certainly less efficient than the English style. It does force a square shape, I think.

 

ocd

[Daniel Hersh]

I've got a new German-made twenty-button double-reed concertina that's also got a metal action that looks much like a metal version of the wooden action. And American builders of Chemnitzer concertinas have been using metal actions since the 1920's or so--but I haven't seen such an action or a photo of one, so I don't know much about the design.

 

But the wooden actions, when well built, work fine too. I'm not sure that they necessarily force a square or even rectangular shape (I've got a wooden-action Chemnitzer where some of the levers head off at odd angles, and that idea might be expanded into a non-rectangular scheme) but I'm sure that they're easier to make that way.

 

Daniel

 

 

And speaking of which, how come bandonions never adapted the metal levers that concertinas use? It seems like even today they're made with wood. Wouldn't the metal levers be more effective or responsive?

 

Harry Geuns makes an aluminum bandoneon action. (There are pictures in his web site

 

http://www.bandoneon-maker.com/bandonions.htm

 

that can be seen by chasing the "action" link.) The pictures are not detailed enough to be able to tell for sure, but it seems that he keeps the geometry of the wooden action while replacing the wooden levers with aluminum levers.

 

The metal lever action is more flexible in that it allows more latitude in the relative placing between button and pad. But the wooden action is not all that less efficient in its use of real-estate. Looking at a bandoneon innards most of the surface is taken by the buttons and the pads, which have to be there. The overhead from the wooden action (mostly on the pivot assembly) does not seem all that large, though it is certainly less efficient than the English style. It does force a square shape, I think.

 

ocd