G'day Foolestroupe / Robin,

I don't remember seeing this thread when it appeared 5½ years ago. I guess it's a bit late to help kelli's paper on the accordion in late 1880s!

However, the generally conceded "inventor" of the (button) accordion was Buschman, Germany, ~ 1821 ... with a lot of improvements by Daimian, in Vienna ~ 1829.

Sometime in the 1830s the French (being French ...) devised the "French Accordion", which was essentially the same, but the notes worked in the opposite direction (though the 'cabinet work' was very nice!) ... which may indicate a preference for playing in the Dorian mode ... popular in areas with dark, gloomy Catolicism! (These French accordions were also called "Flutina / Flautina / &c" depending on the makers). Flutinas were certainly around for a few decades ... and beyond the French borders ... Con Klippel, who founded a family band still running in the Upper Murray Valley, at the foot of Australia's Snowy Mountains arrived in 1857 - playing a Flutina. (The band, today, mainly plays single-row, 4-stop Hohners in "C".)

It seems to have been the French who decided to make a piano keyboard accordion - with notes sounding the same in either direction, starting about 1850 - but the arrangement for an adequate bass end was perfected by the Italians (presumably around Stradella, which is the name for the bass system) in the 1880s. These new "piano accordions" where inevitably much bigger / complicated / costly and didn't appear much as amateur / folk instruments until the late 1920s.

Bit of history .. hope it interests someone!

Regard(les)s,

Bob