G'day again folkiefrank,

(Well ... I tried to send this last night ... but the 'cat submerged for 2 hours ... so it's ow morning, before I head off to work!)

"... not a vampire are you ..."

Well ... no. I've given blood since 1963 - but have been trying, this last year, to develop antibodies to Rh factor ... for the Red Cross Blood Bank's Rh Project (protecting mothers and babies where the mother's Rh -ve blood might develop antibodies to her baby's blood). Unfortunately, my blood system has stayed relentlessly tolerant. I can't go back to donating whole blood until another year's clearance, so I started ... yesterday ... donating plasma at the Plasmapheresis Unit. All very perplexing ... and hard work - my right hand almost got RSI from pumping away on the squeezeball ... to keep everything flowing clean and clear!

Anyway, I have searched my copy of Le Physarmoniche, F Galbiano & N Ciravegna, BE-MA Editrice, Milano, 1987 ... but I didn't find anything by Paolini Enrico. Essentially a guidebook/catalogue of Snr Galbati's collection, in Brugherio, and covering some 100 instruments ... from early Austrian and German accordions, English concertinas, French Flautinas, German Bandoneons - on to mostly Italian accordions in the categories: diatonica (single or multi-row "push-pull" types), cromatica (3 to 6-row "both ways" chromatics) and tastiera piano ("piano accordions"... some of which you would recognise as such!).

With its base in a Milan collection, the earliest Italian examples in the book tend to be from Stradella and Milan in the north-west ... but the text details how Paolo Soprani, in the Castelfidardo, on the mid-west coast, improved his style of instruments from an Austrian accordion he acquired in 1860 ... and then introduced a 'factory system' (along with his brothers Settimio, Pasquale & Nocola).

This was his biggest contribution - and was why his factory survived for 140 years, or more. It also trained a lot of potential independent accordion makers ... many of whom chose to run smaller 'artisan' accordion workshops in the Castelfidardo area. Such workshops produced small runs ... and 'one-offs' ... of fine instruments but often left little history.

So: As we don't have a 'rogue's Gallery' shot ... what is this accordion like?

Is it a 3-row diatonic (different notes on push and pull - and only 12 or 16 bass buttons) ... or a basic Continental chromatic (same note both ways - and something more like a piano accordion set of 'stradella' basses) ... ?.

A photo would be helpful ... but you can't send one by Mudcat PM ... even if you do sign on. If you have an image, could you send it to my address: bobbolton@netspace.net.au ... and I ought to be able to get a general match in style and period from other makers in the same region.

Regards,

Bob