I made an impulse purchase on eBay the other day as it was cheap enough to take a punt on: an old melodeon.It's just arrived at work and I took it into a meeting room for a quick go.

I'm a bit bewildered as I can't get any sounds out of the treble side. Do I need to unscrew those black things (stops?) on top of it? All of them? One at a time? What's their function - what do they do?

As far as squeezeboxes go, I've only ever played a piano accordion before, so I'm a total melodeon ignoramus.

Here's a description of what my 40 quid bought:

"GEBR.LUDWIG ACCORDEON 19 button DOUBLE row diatonic German accordeon with 2 sets of reeds on treble side, with individual stops on top of instrument, 4 bass spoon levers, 2 for single notes and 2 for chords
bellows - no marks rips tears and has good compression.
all buttons and spoons work as they are supposed to do, non sqeaking or sticking.
ALL reeds have been cleaned, had new valves and been rewaxed. No bits of trim are missing. There is some minor woodworm (non active) which can be seen in the pictures but they do not affect the instruments operation: a really pleasent, characturistic old playable instrument"