Dear Mudcatters, On the subject of English pitch. I would like to say that this covers a multitude of pitches from the middle ages to the time when British Philharmonic pitch came into being in 1900! British Philharmonic was actually A=439 not 440, as it was arrived at independantly of modern capabilities to count down from a silicon chip. A= 440 is used today as it is easy to generate from a vibrating crystal hence all those Korg etc. tuners! At the time the British decided on their Philharmonic pitch the French also decided to institute their own International pitch ( they were into decreeing measurements in general after their metric system which based the meter on the distance around the circumference of the earth, (they in fact got it wrong!)The French decided to base their pitch on the length of cathedral organ pipes at a certain temperature ( which was about 60 deg. Fahrenheit). The English were not invited to the conference that decided the issue so they went ahead independantly to formulate their own pitch, based on the length of organ pipes but at a higher temperature ( 68 deg. F or 20 deg. Celsius [ or Centigrade]). This meant that around 1900 there were two pitches, one the English at 439 and would you believe it the French which was 440! Now these pitches were so close to one another that for all intents and purposes they were identical. In 1938 the English moved to A 440 and thereafter most instruments were made in modern concert pitch. However this left all the English Brass Bands still in "Kneller Hall pitch" which is the name of the British military academy of music. This pitch was 40 cents or so sharp of modern A 440 pitch and is very common to concertinas made for the Salvation Army up until the finish of mass concertina production in the mid 1930's. Many brass bands (at least in Australia) did not change their instruments until the 1960's due to the cost of new instruments! In the 19th. century as well as the pitch varying widely in England, the temperament also varied and many concertinas (especially English concertinas) were tuned in 1/4 comma mean tone temperament, which meant that the enharmonic notes were actually different pitches i.e. an Eb was not the same as a D sharp. This means that certain "home" keys were more in tune than keys which strayed away from home keys by too many flats or sharps! Complicated isn't it? Enough to say that the term "English pitch" is not definitive and can apply to a good number of pitches from various piano makers such as Broadwood and to pitches which were changed as often as the mood took various other experts! The most common "sharp" pitch for concertinas is Kneller Hall, though earlier concertinas in 1/4 comma may vary as the mood took the tuner, some up to 55 cents sharp! I submit this information as a person who has retuned hundreds of concertinas over a 25 year period and has done a goodly amount of research on tuning in general during this time.