My tale is of another concertina. Friend of mine offered me an English-made instrument years ago for $100. No maker identification in it, but I could tell it was a thoroughbred, compared to the Bastari I'd been playing. With an investment of another $150 I ended up with a box worth $1500 or more. No one's yet been able to say with one hundred percent certainty who made it, but the boys at The Button Box swear that the only maker who used the same shaped mechanism supports was Crabb, which would make this an early 20th century instrument.

I've gotten a much better return on this investment than on most of my others of late...

Jerry