Guest, Hoot & Fidget

Most of the 2 1/2 row melodeons are fully chromatic BUT the bass ends of course aren't. Personal preference of course but I find the beauty of melodeon is the natural double stopping in it's home keys and the strong bass it achieves. Playing in other keys loses a large of part of this and my preference is to acquire other melodeons (C/F) is next on my list and use other instruments to play in rarer (for folk music) keys.

The B/C, C/C# melodeons (usually called accordions) are fully chromatic but the same caveat applies to the bass ends. Really it depends on what you want to play and the effect you want.

All the best

Steve