treewind:"Wheatstone's serial number 1 was apparently 1830, but I don't know what the instrument looked like".

RE:Interesting new information,where have you got that from?

Tootler:"As to concertinas the diatonic system as used in the Anglo as well as the various German based instruments seems to have been developed by Karl Uhlig in the mid 1830's".

RE:The common source consists of newspaper advertisements by Karl Uhlig in Chemnitz 1834 but there are no known precise descriptions of the said instrument or who atually was responsible for the *invention*

Tootler:"Charles Wheatstone was responsible for what we now know as the English Concertina. His original patent was from 1829 and the final one for the instrument we know today is from 1844".

RE:This is how it is commonly presented as I said initially but it seems to be a traditionally repeated misunderstanding of the patent contents.The 1829 patent deals with the keyboard note layout (the "Symphonium" and what is primarily claimed is precisely the distribution of the diatonic scale on two rows of keys and alternating between left and right side)and the 1844 one deals with some specified novelties - "improvements" - but for the *instrument* itself - "we know as the English Concertina" - there are in real NO patent claims at all !
Yes - the "two systems" apparently were developed in parallel.

But what is a "Concertina/Konzertina" in real?