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now HERE is an optimisitc seller


catty

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It's very easy for those "in the know" to see through appearance to real value. But for the outsider, someone who has just found an instrument, a concertina like this might subjectively look every bit as good, or better, than any other, particularly if all the attention you've ever paid to concertinas before was to ascertain they were hexagonal with buttons. Anyone who has dealt in antiques will know that two subjectively similar items can have values orders of magnitude different to each other. This is why occasionally fantastic old concertinas appear in job-lots and car boot sales.

 

Ebay can act as quite a good educator, if you set a start price beyond the value of an item, i is unlikely to sell. This guy is obviously learning, but slowly.

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So it is not likely to be worth $200?

 

 

Hmmm, not likely. Maybe half that.

BUT - if u have a special magnifying glass u can make out the message in invisible ink which says this was presented to Eric Honecker by the chief of the Stasi after it was used by George Blake when he was controller for the KGB of the Berlin network and he used it to send out musical signals out for encounters of the Third Man. So it automatically plays the Harry Lime tune.

Here's the tune but it sounds like a mandolin is blocking out the Anglo tone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__yo60V8Nzg

 

With a provence like that could be worth thousands..........of pre-war Dmarks

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So it is not likely to be worth $200?

 

My guess is 50 bucks.

I bought one of these in about 1983 before I knew any better. As I remember, I paid about 25 UK pounds for it, but I soon sold it on again for a tenner within a matter of weeks. It was horrible! Wheezy, slow to respond, out of tune. The person who bought it from me reported a few months later that first one of the straps broke, then the reeds went really out of tune and a couple of reeds actually broke from fatigue.

 

50 bucks? I wouldn't even give 50 p for it. The only use they have is for firewood.

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So it is not likely to be worth $200?

 

My guess is 50 bucks.

50 bucks? I wouldn't even give 50 p for it. The only use they have is for firewood.

 

Personally, I wouldn't give anything for it...as no doubt many here wouldn't either. But the question was "how much is it worth?" Ultimately, I think it may likely sell for $40-$50, if the seller understands and accepts that.

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So it is not likely to be worth $200?
My guess is 50 bucks.
50 bucks? I wouldn't even give 50 p for it. The only use they have is for firewood.
Personally, I wouldn't give anything for it...as no doubt many here wouldn't either. But the question was "how much is it worth?" Ultimately, I think it may likely sell for $40-$50, if the seller understands and accepts that.

My later-period Galotta cost me around $100, if I remember correctly, and is a good concertina for the price. I've seen that model go for more than that on eBay, especially the ones in G/D. (Mine's in D/A.) I believe that Stephen said in one of the threads that I linked to that all the Communist-era German concertinas, including these, were made by Scholer, but the quality seems to have varied from decent to awful. I don't know where the one currently on eBay would be in that range -- it has some of the external characteristics of the later Galottas (such as the black buttons) but not all of them.

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I assumed that it wss a Scholer or its equivalent. The Scholers I've played were all vastly inferior to the $100 Hohner.

 

So, Daniel...how much would YOU pay for it?

Edited by catty
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I'm not in the market, so I wouldn't pay anything! I already have two German-made concertinas (not counting my two Chemnitzers) and don't play them often. One of them is the D/A Galotta I mentioned earlier, where I think I paid around $100 including shipping and felt that I did well. The other is a decent-playing C/G red pearloid multi-reed Scholer that I bought locally from a c.net member for $75 and was able to play before buying. The one on eBay looks a bit like my Galotta, as I said, but there are enough differences that I wouldn't count on it being as competently made as that one -- I do know that Scholer made some really bad concertinas too.

 

So if someone asked me how much they should spend on this one, I'd probably wind up with the same $50 figure that I think you mentioned earlier, because of the risk that it might be unplayable but in the hope that it's one of the decent ones.

 

I assumed that it wss a Scholer or its equivalent. The Scholers I've played were all vastly inferior to the $100 Hohner.

 

So, Daniel...how much would YOU pay for it?

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