What Sort Of 'box' Is This?

[premo]

E-bay are advertising an 'Old wooden concertina in box, working', item number 2373446689. The instrument is 5 sided and has four rows of buttons per end, but in two rows either side of the handstrap. It looks as though you would turn the instrument around to play each set of buttons (presumably they are different keys). No makers name is given. Is this a standard concertina variation?

[Chris Timson]

That is a weirdy and no mistake. The main piece of information missing from the decription is whether the buttons play the same notes on the push and pull or not.

 

Here is my guess (and it carries enormous caveats because I've not seen anything like it). The buttons, it appears, are numbered across the ends rather than from to back or back to front. This suggests to me (along with the basic layout of each pair of rows) as it does to you a doubled up anglo layout. The player would hold the concertina one way round to play one set of rows, then the other way round to play the other set of rows. I presume each set of rows are in a different pair of home keys. You can just see both air buttons in one of the pictures, and they are indeed placed in such a way as to support reversible playing.

 

Other features, like the mid-bellows support and the style of inlay look vaguely German to me, and the size would also tend to suggest accordion reeds rather than concertina reeds. But I have to say again, I'm guessing like mad here.

 

I have *never* seen anything like it, and I'd be most curious to know if anyone else has seen something like this.

 

Chris

[Richard Morse]

We happen to have a concertina like this sitting up on our "museum" shelf. Ours appears to be a bit fancier model but in much worse condition. It is as you suspect, Chris, a double anglo with typical German action, ganged reeds, etc.

[goran rahm]

Rich,

Any maker?...what are the keys?? Pitch?

Any sensible reason for the 5 sides...and where have they hidden the reeds (common reed plate(s)? and where does the mechanism go?

Goran

[JimLucas]

Any sensible reason for the 5 sides...?

The most sensible reason of all: It's an attractive shape.

[Clive Thorne]

Novel and wierd, but I cant help but think you'd be better off with two separate 20 key instrunents.

 

Clive

[Stephen Chambers]

I have *never* seen anything like it, and I'd be most curious to know if anyone else has seen something like this.

 

I had one like it about 25 years ago, which I think I may have "swapped" with Neil Wayne (?) Certainly there was a similar one (identified as C436) in his old Concertina Museum collection (so now presumably at the Horniman ?). They are of typical German construction, as has already been said.

 

I would describe it as a "house-shaped double German concertina", and Rich Morse's one even has the suggestion of a door between two windows on the ends. There is an amazing house-shaped "single" concertina in the Musik- und Wintersportmuseum Klingenthal, which very clearly has both windows and even an overhanging roof !

 

 

It was shown in the Exhibition Sehnsucht aus dem Blasebalg, at the Schlossbergmuseum, Chemnitz, in 2001. You can see some of the other exhibits (including an astonishing concertina made to look like a German "Pickelhaube" spiked helmet) if you click on the hyperlink, then on "Galerie", then on the sub-headings that come up.

 

Edited to update hyperlink.

Edited October 7, 2006 by Stephen Chambers

[JimLucas]

Novel and wierd, but I cant help but think you'd be better off with two separate 20 key instrunents.

Or one with 4 rows in a single orientation? You'd have more scales -- e.g., some klezmer scales -- and chords available that way.

 

I guess that would be a bit like a Chemnitzer or bandoeon.

[Stephen Chambers]

Got it !

 

The latest addition to the collection :

Edited January 23, 2004 by Stephen Chambers

[Chris Timson]

So, what keys are each side in, is it accordion-reeded, anything else unusual about it???

 

Chhers,

 

Chris

[Stephen Chambers]

So, what keys are each side in, is it accordion-reeded, anything else unusual about it???

 

Chris,

 

It hasn't arrived here yet, but I expect it will be of 100% normal German construction, with wooden levers, glued-on buttons and ten reeds per plate. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is in C/G one end, and Bb/F the other, but time will tell ...

 

Cheers,

[Stephen Chambers]

... I expect it will be of 100% normal German construction, with wooden levers, glued-on buttons and ten reeds per plate. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it is in C/G one end, and Bb/F the other, but time will tell ...

 

The "push-me-pull-you" (I've decided it reminds me of Dr. Doolittle's double-ended llama) arrived a few days ago and, except for the tuning, it is very much as I predicted.

 

However, a problem arises when trying to establish the key of an old German instrument in England : Was it made, for export, in English pitch (around half a semitone sharp) or in German pitch (around half a semitone flat) ? It is often a problem with old German simple-system flutes, which are often in C#, rather than D (six-finger note).

 

As the sharp-pitch (English) keys, of E/B & F#/C#, don't seem to make much sense, I think it must have been made at flat (German) pitch in F/C & G/D.