Dick - I haven't got any kind of box as yet! I'm 90% sure it will be an English concertina I look for, & probably a baritone, but I still need to think about it some more. (There's also a small matter of a boat that needs to come in before I can justify the expense.) And I'm definitely thinking in terms of chords and drones rather than melody. Wendy Grossman's Patrick Spens is another example of the kind of accompaniment I'm thinking of, although I'll definitely have to go a bit down-market from the box she was using -

The concertina used on Sir Patrick Spens and Cameron Highlanders was a very unusual model: a 64-key Wheatstone tenor-treble in perfect condition, found for me in an attic in Denver, Colorado by Dave Ferretta sometime around 1978, when he had a music store there (does he still, anyone?). Those who know concertinas may email me and tell me that tenor-trebles have 56 keys, and they'd be right. But this one had 64 -- it went down to A below C below middle C, which is why I was able to play those low drones. It dropped a few of the higher notes, but that was fine with me as I thought they were no loss. Really more of a baritone-treble. This concertina was stolen from a gate lodge I lived in from 1983-1984 in Annamoe, Co. Wicklow, in Ireland. If you ever see it, you'll know it's the one, as my name and my old Ithaca address are stamped on the wood inside the end (unless someone's sanded it off, which I can't believe). I'd love to have it back if anyone runs across it. Steve Dickinson, who now owns the Wheatstone name, tells me there's only about a six-year wait if I want to get a replacement made...