Prehistoric Concertina Remains Discovered...

[Jonathan Taylor]

On holiday in Ireland last August, I took this photo at Ennis Friary. It shows what appear to be unfinished Aeola components roughly fashioned from what looks (admittedly to my geologically untrained eye) like granite. The one at bottom left is clearly an attempt at a reed pan, but it looks like the craftsman's chisel unfortunately slipped all the way to the centre hole when he was carving the first reed groove, thereby rendering the part useless. On the right-hand side of the part in the centre of the photo, if one looks very closely one can just make out a very faint mark where a finger rest was once attached, evidence that this part was originally intended to be the left end of an English concertina. However, distinctive thumbstrap screwhole patterns cannot be detected, indicating that these remains predate both Wheatstone and Lachenal.

 

Another explanation could be, of course, that these (obviously human ) artefacts represent an exciting transition phase in the evolutionary development of the wheel. The object at top shows an further interesting stage, before the concept of "round" was extended to include the entire circumference.

[Henk van Aalten]

On the right-hand side of the part in the centre of the photo, if one looks very closely one can just make out a very faint mark where a finger rest was once attached, evidence that this part was originally intended to be the left end of an English concertina. However, distinctive thumbstrap screwhole patterns cannot be detected, indicating that these remains predate both Wheatstone and Lachenal.

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Jonathan

 

This is exciting news!! We (at our laboratory) made a painstaking analysis of this picture and with special techniques we could unveil further details. After an high resolution AF analysis, it became clear that we have to do with an Anglo. The attachment shows the AF upgrade of your picture. The middle stone on the lower row shows clearly a typical Anglo button row.

[bigsqueezergeezer]

Oooooh Henk! What does AF stand for? Artistic Falsehood?!!?

[Henrik Müller]

This is exciting news!! We (at our laboratory) made a painstaking analysis of this picture...

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I like this!

Nothing beats real, live scientific research!

 

Henrik

[Stephen Chambers]

On the right-hand side of the part in the centre of the photo, if one looks very closely one can just make out a very faint mark where a finger rest was once attached, evidence that this part was originally intended to be the left end of an English concertina. However, distinctive thumbstrap screwhole patterns cannot be detected, indicating that these remains predate both Wheatstone and Lachenal.

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Jonathan

 

This is exciting news!! We (at our laboratory) made a painstaking analysis of this picture and with special techniques we could unveil further details. After an high resolution AF analysis, it became clear that we have to do with an Anglo. The attachment shows the AF upgrade of your picture. The middle stone on the lower row shows clearly a typical Anglo button row.

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I wasn't going to mention this exciting discovery in Ennis until my paper about them appeared in the next edition of PICA, but you have now forced my hand. They obviously take the history of our instrument back long before the hexagonal wooden remains found on the wreck of Henry VIII's flagship the Marie Rose, and finally debunk Charles Wheatstone's spurious claim to have "invented" the concertina in 1829. The truth is out now, the instrument was really invented by the monks of Ennis Friary in the Middle Ages, which is why it has so long been associated with Co. Clare.

 

I even have an early photograph of a player of one of these instruments, reproduced below :

 

 

And I own a slightly later, wooden version of this design :

 

[Henk van Aalten]

Oooooh Henk! What does AF stand for? Artistic Falsehood?!!? 

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Nice guess Derek, but it refers more to this day of the month

[bigsqueezergeezer]

finally debunk Charles Wheatstone's spurious claim to have "invented" the concertina in 1829.

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Nothing is "cast in stone"!

 

Derek

[Greg Jowaisas]

My understanding is that Henk's work will be appearing in "The National Enquirer",

"The Globe" and "The London Sun". Since these impeccable bastions of journalistic truth are known to pay huge sums for revealing photos perhaps we should rephrase to "cash in stone"?

 

Keep up the good work, Henk! I'm looking forward to your photo documentary of "Alien sightings at pub sessions".

 

Regards,

 

Greg

[Henk van Aalten]

After a high resolution AF analysis, it became clear that we have to do with an Anglo. The attachment shows the AF upgrade of your picture. The middle stone on the lower row shows clearly a typical Anglo button row.

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It's not my habit to quote myself, but research continued today with new results.

First we look in detail under special UV light and saw this image:

 

 

It looks as if there is more to be seen at the bottom of this "stone" Anglo. We therefore immersed the material is special contrasting liquids and made these pictures:

 

 

It looks as if the maker(?) tried to carve in his name on the anglo. At this moment we are not sure about the name, but maybe one of you has a suggestion??

[Stephen Chambers]

It looks as if the maker(?) tried to carve in his name on the anglo. At this moment we are not sure about the name, but maybe one of you has a suggestion??

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Further filtration at our research facility here in Kilrush has revealed the name of the masonic concertina maker :

 

 

Could that be Fred himself ?

 

Yabba Dabba Doo !

 

(But personally I think it is more likely a Millstone than a Wheatstone ! )

Edited April 1, 2005 by Stephen Chambers

[michael sam wild]

jan 4 2010

 

 

Worth a re excavation, obviously Irish and Scottish giants hurled concertinas art each other

http://www.travelsinireland.com/northern/causeway.htm

[Ptarmigan]

jan 4 2010

 

 

Worth a re excavation, obviously Irish and Scottish giants hurled concertinas art each other

http://www.travelsinireland.com/northern/causeway.htm

 

Michael, I actually live right next door to this site & through extensive research over the years, I have managed to establish what really happened! Backed up by what I heard from a Leprechaun who I met, on the way home from the Bushmills Inn one night!

 

You see, at one time, Ireland was actually awash with English Concertinas, but the very name English sickened the Irish so much, that they schemed & contrived to have all the English Concertinas in Ireland brought up to Bushmills for a festival.

Then, the players were taken on a free tour of nearby Bushmills Distillery & with them out of the way, they had all their Concetinas carted up to the nearby beach & dumped, after being treated to ensure that they would never ever be played again!

 

So there you have it! ....... & that's as true as my name is Lagopus mutus

[Leo]

jan 4 2010

 

 

Worth a re excavation, obviously Irish and Scottish giants hurled concertinas art each other

http://www.travelsinireland.com/northern/causeway.htm

 

Michael, I actually live right next door to this site & through extensive research over the years, I have managed to establish what really happened! Backed up by what I heard from a Leprechaun who I met, on the way home from the Bushmills Inn one night!

 

You see, at one time, Ireland was actually awash with English Concertinas, but the very name English sickened the Irish so much, that they schemed & contrived to have all the English Concertinas in Ireland brought up to Bushmills for a festival.

Then, the players were taken on a free tour of nearby Bushmills Distillery & with them out of the way, they had all their Concetinas carted up to the nearby beach & dumped, after being treated to ensure that they would never ever be played again!

 

So there you have it! ....... & that's as true as my name is Lagopus mutus

OOOHHHH! AAAHHHH! The mythical concertina graveyard of legend, or is it the mine where the blanks for new ones originate?

 

Thanks

Leo

[drbones]

So, if St. Patrick is credited with getting all the snakes out of Ireland, who's responsible for getting rid of all the English concertinas? St. Anglostina perhaps? Could this be cause for another drinking holiday? Or do we even need a reason for another drinking holiday?

[Kautilya]

This is a load of Blarney (hot air, for the foreign brethren) - u can tell by the lack of an air button in the UV picture......

 

posted under the seal of Ard-Rí na hÉireann by his flunKey-player.

 

ps - I am sending for further analysis to the world's stone circle expert (a close friend) who is from Bushmills. Were any Bushmills whiskey bottles found nearby?

Edited January 5, 2010 by Kautilya

[Kautilya]

This is a load of Blarney (hot air, for the foreign brethren) - u can tell by the lack of an air button in the UV picture......

 

posted under the seal of Ard-Rí na hÉireann by his flunKey-player.

 

ps - I am sending for further analysis to the world's stone circle expert (a close friend) who is from Bushmills. Were any Bushmills whiskey bottles found nearby?

 

Quoth he:

"Not The Work Of Man?

 

Causeway Evidence Confounds Friend of Darwin.

 

I can best quote the well known observation by Thackeray on this one";

 

" ... and despite a most convivial night spent beyond the small hours in the

company of some local excisemen worthies in pursuit of certain vile Leprechauns

recently come within the vicinity of the Inn at nearby Bushmills, I would council

those in pursuit of enlightenment, or indeed simple amusement, that the fossil

concertinas at the Giant's Causeway, though worth seeing, are not worth going to

see. Bagged three of the blighters by sun up."

[Steve Gardham]

Sorry to cast aspertions on the antiquity of these very real concertinas, but they have obviously been hung in a petrifying well like that at Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough, Yorkshire. Another possibility, they could be old seamen's concertinas that have gone down with sunken ships and become part of a coral reef and then raised up over thousands of years.

[Kautilya]

Steve is getting us much nearer the truth - a concertfeitina racket operating out of deepest witch country through International Concertfeitina Associations. The metronomic drip dripo drip of Speleological evidence also implicates lime from Malham Caves and similar in this racket.

 

This historial evidence is reinforced after consultation with a distinguished sounding off expert (Rufus Ethelbert Reed)who has studied the international movements of concertfitinas from his academic chair. It is clear that patent claims by Lachenal, Wheatstone et al. fly completeley out of the window in the face of documented visual evidence and close enconcertiners of the third kind.

 

RER tells me:

 

"Yes, I think they've also detected one on the surface of Mars. I like

finding concertinas...in films - pirates of the Spanish Main

circa 1650 jigging to a Lachenal etc." (by email)

 

This clearly means that the fossilised concertfeitinas were copied and refashioned into working instruments out of ship's plank by pirate networks and no doubt dastardly French Banditoneonistes and English privateers (film references also available from our Paris Cor-respondent Lady de Temps); and rebranded by Victorian and later makers....

Edited January 6, 2010 by Kautilya