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I got intertested in button accordions after years spent playing the mandolin,
and after years spent wishing it
had more volume and sustain. I tried the violin but "didn’t get on with
it", so to speak!
I listened to a lot of Sharon Shannon etc, and thought the button box might be
what I was looking for.
Unfortunately the cost of a new one put me off, I couldn’t spend that
much money on something I might not be able to play.
Second hand seemed to be the way to go....
This Hohner cost me £50 from a man in Cramlington, Northumberland who was about to
put it on his stall
at ’Antique Fairs’ in the North East of England.
He told me something about its interesting life in the pubs of the North East
of England.
It dates from the late 1920s or early 1930s
After a query to rec.music.makers.squeezebox I had a reply from Malcolm Clapp in Australia who identified it and estimated its age.
I found, on a visit to The Music Rooms in Yorkshire, that it wouldn’t be
too costly to have the reeds retuned (it’s a B/C but rather out of tune!)
and the correct basses fitted (instead of Hohner’s peculiar set up), but
since I really wanted to learn D/G rather than B/C, and given it’s general overall condition I decided to
treat myself to a new one....see the next page
