RED is soo 1970's

Come to think of it, all the Ericas, Corona IIs and IIIs and Club model Hohners that I saw in both the UK and Oz in the 70s were red perloid unless they were relatively old. It used to be the case that, if it were black, the instrument was keyed for some combination of G/C/F and the onset of the folk revival, with its preference for B/C or C/C# (in the case of Ericas) or A/D/G (in the case of Coronas) brought on red perloid as a distinguishing characteristic. This may have been a particularly Oz phenomenon. In fact, the first grey perloid Hohner instrument I encountered was Jackie Daly's; from distant recollection it was probably an Erica.

Marje is obviously correct about how the name melodeon has taken over for diatonic instruments in the British Isles; "accordion" was what was used in both the south of England and Ireland but neither Hobgoblin nor The Music Room appeared (to me) to have their currrent influence when I was visiting. It's quite probable that the idiosyncracies of owners of such outlets can be very influential on the received terminology; Kurt Jacob in Sydney (while using Hohner catalogue terminology) would be a case in point, as Hohner instruments were the most frequently encountered as far as button boxes were concerned.

I'm not trying to change English usage of terminology (a rose by any other name..., after all) but I am trying to deal with potentially confusing terms in a clarifying way. Coincidentally, over the weekend, I was trying to clarify exactly the same confusions in a conversation with a couple of Swiss visitors who travel widely and are thus exposed to the same international scope as Mudcat, but from a different background. An intersting conversation.

Cheers, Rowan.