favourite concertina maker

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 05:39 AM

I'm with Brian on this one.
In the golden age of tina making. The craftsmen and women who made the reeds, reed pans, bellows, etc went to whichever company would employ them. Simple economics really. So, comparisons just don't work. I play a Wheatstone, because it's what I've got.
Have I any idea who actually built the various parts? Nope. But the people who made the component parts could well have been applying their skills to Lachenal, Jeffries or whoever the following week.
A craftsman is just that. If the money was available they would take the best offer. (Why wouldn't they?)

Obviously nowadays the likes of Colin Dipper and Steve Dickinson (Wheatstone) are making "bespoke" instruments as a cottage industry, to the requirements of their clients.

So Like Brian. I'm out of this convoluted thread that essentially has little point to it.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:01 AM

Hope you're happy, now, Guran?

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Old Grizzly
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 07:32 AM

Perhaps Goran would like to remind us why he was IP banned from concertina.net ??

No point banging your head against a brick wall ...I'm out............

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: GUEST,OldNicKilby
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 07:36 AM

Perhaps it might be useful to take a lead from C.Net and bar this person from Mudcat for such awful diatribes.
I thought that this was a really interesting thread until it was tied into knots

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 07:42 AM

Goran was also excluded from the International Concertina Association email list for quite some time; I don't know whether he's been re-admitted.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Guran
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 08:27 AM

Brian Peters:"So it is "100% meaningless" (a phrase in itself nonsensical) to say that "a Dipper is a superior instrument to a Stagi", unless several investigators have compared a specific Dipper with a specific Stagi?"

RE: In principle yes, apart from the selfevident expectation that a product that costs 10times as much as another is assumed having some quality superiority too - but as is well known from *other* fields this is not always true. Again a matter of *what* is compared and evaluated and the complex issue "value for money" may be added.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Guran
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 08:34 AM

Ralphie:"In the golden age of tina making. The craftsmen and women who made the reeds, reed pans, bellows, etc went to whichever company would employ them. Simple economics really. So, comparisons just don't work. I play a Wheatstone, because it's what I've got.
Have I any idea who actually built the various parts? Nope. But the people who made the component parts could well have been applying their skills to Lachenal, Jeffries or whoever the following week".

RE:Some of the manufacture work likely was done at home by workers. I have only seen that tuning jobs were regularly 'home based'. But is there any historic documentation concerning such weekly turnover among craftsmen that you describe?

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 09:20 AM

Flagellating a deceased equine quadruped...

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 10:13 AM

Farting against thunder.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 10:37 AM

Some people find the action on my wooden ended Lachenal 30 key Anglo (circa 1890) a little too stiff for their liking, but I've been playing it for around forty years and am used to it.

I tried a Crabb once (belonging to 'Catter Noreen - I was repairing it for her), and found that the action was very light indeed. However, I think that for Morris outdoors it may be just a little too light, as I tend to put my fingers on keys I'm about to play... so I prefer one that fights back a little!

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 10:39 AM

As a friend of mine used to say... 'Please read this and make sure you are completely faux pas with it'!

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:17 PM

To Guran....
Who cares? Not me. I play 2 lovely Wheatstone MaCanns. I don't actually care who made the various bits that make them up. They sound perfectly fine to me.
And, NO. I'm not the slightest bit interested in moving the straps around.
Why does the word Pedant spring to mind at this point?
And to answer your pointless question. Tommy Williams worked for anyone who would pay him.
As did many others. So, Kindly define a Wheatstone, Lachenal, etc, and name all the craftsmen involved in their manufacture...Go on...

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:36 PM

Have just re read through this whole sorry thread.
Apparently this "Guran" bloke is known for trolling. Why did I get sucked into this B*****cks.
Hangs head in shame, and shuffles off left field....
(I promise never to rise to Troll bait again.......until the next time obviously!)

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Guran
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:02 PM

Ralphie: "To Guran....And to answer your pointless question. Tommy Williams worked for anyone who would pay him.As did many others".

RE:Did Tommy Williams say that to you personally? According to Neil Wayne's interview with him he never worked for anyone else than Lachenals as long as being an employee.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:38 PM

Gee, who'da thunk a concertina thread would turn into a brawl? We generally have a policy of not banning people, although we do ban combat. That means you have to learn non-combative ways of dealing with such people. If nobody had responded combatively to this person you deem a troll, we wouldn't have combat in this thread. We don't allow personal attacks against anyone, even though they may be unwashed and unholy and troll-like. So,

Cut it out!!!

Get back to talking about concertinas and drop the personal attacks - and stop calling people trolls, willya?.
-Joe Offer, forum moderator-

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: GUEST,Mars friend
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 03:23 PM

Ralphie, Guran is not troll. Strong opinions. Tenacious like bulldog. But sincere. Never troll.

Soldier Schweik pats self on back with name. Provokes. I observate, not attack, will not say more.

"Favourite concertina maker"? I have met personally only seven, email with others, all very nice people, all favourite.

Maker of favourite concertinas? Different question, but what most are answering. Or even favourite make and model of concertina? To me still not one only. In my hands happy with many, but some not so happy. Not-happy ones mostly good names, but poor condition.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 08:03 PM

"Favourite concertina maker" - I'm not sure if I've met seven, I can think of Steve Dickinson, Colin & Rosie Dipper, and Marcus in the UK, and another three in Australia - all, as Mars friend says, very nice people, who have put a lot of time and effort into learning about the instrument and acquiring skills that would formerly have been performed by several specialist crafts-people. Apart from re-tunes and repairs, and the occasional kit of spares,I haven't been able to patronise any of them, so I guess none of them would qualify as "favourite concertina makers" - but "favourite people" - very much so.

"Maker of favourite concertinas" - difficult question.

Even thirty-five and some years ago when I first started looking for an instrument to play, and you didn't need a second mortgage to get going (and I didn't even have a first mortgage anyway!) it was more or less chance that put a playable instrument into your hands. Haunting Portobello Road eventually turned up a Bb/F Jefferies anglo (I think I must have figured out from borrowing/trying friends' instruments that I didn't get along with the English system. Anything more exotic just wasn't around). As I wasn't even considering the possibility of playing with anybody else at that point, the key wasn't a problem, at least it worked for song accompaniment. It is still an uncomfortable instrument to play (a sharp corner rests unavoidably under the heel of my hand), but sounds and plays really sweet after fine-tuning and re-fettling by Marcus about ten years ago. All the three UK experts who have seen it reckon it was made by Jones.

By the time I felt the need for more range, Keith Higham had offered me a Crabb C/G anglo which soon became my main instrument for both tunes and song accompaniment.

A couple of years after that some friends put me in touch with a Salvation Army Lachenal in G/D. Despite being a lot stiffer sprung than the other instruments, and heavier because of the longer reeds, it is the same physical size as the higher-pitched boxes, and has become the first instrument I reach for, with a rich, mellow tone that works well with voice, and still fast enough for most sessions without producing nerve, muscle and joint pains (as long as I don't try to play three hours at a stretch!)

Instruments that might have become favourites - I came across a modern (Dickinson) Wheatstone anglo in C/G that was very light and responsive, lovely tone - however it was in competition with one of Roger Bucknall's citterns that year (he won) and I never saw one again. Many years before that I found an anglo in A/E (can't remember the make) that was the equal of the Dickinson Wheatstone for playability and sweetness of tone. Regretted letting it pass ever since, never saw another like it - if anybody's got an A/E going spare, let me know! (There are still a few keys where the fingering doesn't come easily on the other instruments).

Ross

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Nov 09 - 10:16 AM

I can only speak from my own experience,the only Jones that Ihave seen that was not slow did not have broad reeds,perhaps a coincidence or perhaps not.

Subject: RE: favourite concertina maker
From: English Jon
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 09:05 AM

If it helps, I once got to play a Dipper 10 sided Tenor English 48, that was the best instrument (not just best concertina, best INSTRUMENT) I have ever played. Apparently there are two of these in the world.

Cheers,
Jon