First off, I've got to assume she has found this site (scroll down to find stuff about Faas and a link to his patent app):

http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/AccordionInstrumentoftheGods

Second, don't be mislead by the picture of a modern pianobox player that Accordian Guy
has stuck next to Faas's picture. AF was *not* proposing imporvements to the piano accordian, which was some years away in 1851 if I recall correctly.

Think diatonic buttonbox (Good thing DD has a squeezer for a mum). That's what Faas describes and what he wants to improve. And as he says, he proposes improvements which will enable an original diatonic and push-pull instrument to:

1) be played chromatically (it sounds on a quick reading as though he is proposing
   to do this much as modern Irish players do, by putting a B major diatonic row - and hence all the "black keys" adjacent to the diatonic C row);

2) To provide the "missing" notes, when the bellows of the diatonic box is moving in
    one direction or the other, by means of an alternate set of reeds tuned to provide them which are accessed by his shift-lever design.

It all sounds to me like a more complex version of a modern chromatic harmonica. More complex because his shift-lever design can access either of two complimentary systems to the original diatonic plan.

Do read the patent app. more carefully than I have (it is late). I think I have it right, but I'm trusting Mudcatters to correct me if I'm not.

Now then, there were boatloads of patent instruments bursting forth like spring crocusses in the mid-nineteenth century. Many are weird and wonderful. Most sank with few bubbles. The autoharp being one of the exceptions. I can't hazard a guess whether any of Faas's very interesting proposals sank or swam.

DD may have better luck trying to contact folks who repair old boxes and/or who know of collectors. There is the Button Box (e.g.), in Sunderland, MA, makers of my anglo and - am I right - yours, Allison. They might give a desperate student a lead.

There are some mighty box players on Mudcat - Skipjack K8, Foolstroupe, Alan Day and others. But the three I named are not Yanks at all, at all. Does DD know whether any of Faas's accordians were ever commercially manufactured ?

If anything good turns up, I hope you or DD will post it.

_ George