The Concertina Museum Collection Ref:C-006.



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Item Type: Concertina

Summary Labels and Serial Numbers End Frets Fingering System Straps and Holding Devices Fret Baffle Action Board Reeds and Reed Pans Bellows Case and Other

Summary

Full Description: Very early Wheatstone 32-key English system, with later but contemporary decorated brass ends, inset rosewood sided ends over raised reed-pan nests. It has bone pallets with blued-steel leaf springs. Ivory keys with note-name stamps, and brass base pins screwed into base of key, which enter into holes in the action-board. The accidental keys have black composition cores. There are sub-fret pine baffles of close-grained pine secured beneath the frets. Large bone pallets, radial reed pans nested into a continental cradle. Rectangular square-end reed-frames, stamped with note-names, plus the note names on the wood within the chamber dividers. Brass reed-tongues. 4-fold green leather bellows with 8-point gold-star papers. Later high quality brass ends, with sub-fret retaining strips still present. Sold to a Mrs Raine on 19th June 1837, the day before the death of King William IVth, and thus the day before the accession of Queen Victoria on 20th June 1837. Her coronation was on 28th June 1838.

Concertina Summary: Charles Wheatstone No 122

Owner or Collection: Concertina Museum, Belper

Maker: C Wheatstone

Maker Links: Concertina, Charles Wheatstone No 122. http://www.concertina.com/wheatstone/index.htm

Wheatstone Ledgers Link: www.horniman.info/WNCMARC/C104A/IMAGES/C1P0070D.JPG

Region of Manufacture: London

Main Maker's Label Wording: Label absent, though brass RH end has two holes drilled in a position eqivalent to those drilled to mount the oval silver plaques used upon similar models.

System Type: 32-Key English

Source Catalogue No: The Concertina Museum Collection Ref:C-006.






Maker Details

Wheatstone & Co. were founded in 1824, and survived until 1974. In 1975 the company was refounded by Steve Dickinson.

C. Wheatstone & Co was established in London, England by Charles Wheatstone (uncle to Sir Charles and William Dolman Wheatstone) at the beginning of the 19th Century. They moved to 20 Conduit Street, London, England in 1824. After the death of William in 1862, the firm was taken over by Edward Chidley, a distant relation. Edward Chidley died in 1899, and the firm was then controlled by his sons Edward and Percy. In 1905 the firm moved to 15 West Street.

After the death of the younger Edward Chidley in 1943, part of the firm was sold to Besson & Co., who were taken over by Boosey & Hawkes in 1948. In 1958 they moved to Duncan Terrace, Islington, North London. In 1961 the Duncan Terrace property was sold, and the remains of Wheatstone & Co. were moved to the Boosey & Hawkes factory in Edgware, Middlesex. The company ceased trading on the death of its last employee in 1974.

The remains of the company were purchased by Steve Dickinson in 1975.


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The Concertina Museum Collection

Created August 2009 by Neil Wayne
Last Modified 07 February 2012 by Neil Wayne, Chris Flint, Wes Williams

This page created Tuesday 14 February 2012.