Scan Tester's Crabb

[Roger Digby]

As many of you will know, Scan Tester’s Crabb is now being played by Will Duke; nothing could be more appropriate.

It has no external number, but recently Will had cause to open it and found 8485 on the reed pan and 8483 inside the bellows. He sent these numbers to me and fortunately I was with Geoff Crabb just a few days later at Bradfield. Geoff has a date of 1895 for 8452 and 1896 for 8505 so Scan’s instrument can safely be placed at 1895-6.

Geoff thought that the discrepancy in numbers probably indicated that it was once one of a set of three (usually these would be a C, a G, and a Bflat). These would be identical except for the tuning and all the work would be done in triplicate. When the parts were assembled there was no need to match the numbers precisely.

Scan, of course, did not buy the instrument new. I think the story is that he bought it in a second-hand shop in Brighton for a fiver.

(Will Duke does not own a computer, which is the reason that I am posting this!)

Best wishes

Roger