Appendix 1: Wheatstone and Lachenal Dates of Manufacture

Wes Williams has written an excellent article on this subject which, if you have access to the Internet, can be read at:-

   http://www.concertina.net/wes_williams_dating.html

His article is particularly helpful if you have a non-Wheatstone concertina, and is probably rather more accurate on Lachenals than the information I present below.

A major project has been started to try and create some sort of master list of Lachenal dates, by Chris Algar, Bob Gaskins, Randy Merris and Wes Williams. If you own a Lachenal concertina you can help! Send Chris Algar of Barleycorn Concertinas (see section 9, Shops and Dealers) a note or an email giving a brief description of your Lachenal concertina and its number. If you still have the original bill of sale or any other way of dating its purchase with certainty so much the better!

If you have a Wheatstone concertina and you can identify the serial number (it is normally on one end) then this list will tell you the year of manufacture. Sometimes, if the label has been lost from the baffle in the older instruments, it can also be found stamped inside the bellows frame, in the treble-most slots of the reed pan, and on the reed-pan side of the action-box.

      Serial no      Year            Serial no       Year

        1 -   499   1830/42         23500 - 23999   1904/06
      500 -   999   1842/45         24000 - 24499   1906/08
     1000 -  1499   1845/48         24500 - 24999   1908/10
     1500 -  1999   1848/49         25000 - 25499   1910/12
     2000 -  2499   1849/50         25500 - 25999   1912/13
     2500 -  3499   1850/51         26000 - 26499   1913/14
     3500 -  3999   1851/52         26500 - 26999   1914/16
     4000 -  4999   1852/53         27000 - 27499   1916/17
     5000 -  6999   1853/54         27500 - 27999   1917/19
     7000 -  7999   1854/55         28000 - 28499   1919/20
     8000 -  8999   1855/56         28500 - 28999   1920/21
     9000 -  9999   1856/57         29000 - 29499   1921/22
    10000 - 10999   1857/59         29500 - 29999   1922/24
    11000 - 11999   1859/63         30000 - 30499   1924/25
    12000 - 12999   1863/65         30500 - 30999   1925/26
    13000 - 13999   1865/67         31000 - 31499   1926/27
    14000 - 18499   1867/70         31500 - 31999   1927/29
    18500 - 18999   1870/73         32000 - 32499   1929/30
    19000 - 19499   1873/77         32500 - 32999   1930/33
    19500 - 19999   1877/82         33000 - 33499   1933/35
    20000 - 20499   1882/86         33500 - 33999   1935/36
    20500 - 20999   1886/89         34000 - 34499   1936/37
    21000 - 21499   1889/92         34500 - 34999   1937/38
    21500 - 21999   1892/95         35000 - 35499   1938/45
    22000 - 22499   1895/98         35500 - 35540   1945/51
    22500 - 22999   1898/01         35541 - 36400   1951/57
    23000 - 23499   1901/04         36401 - 36680   1957

This list was originally prepared by Nigel Pickles and published in Concertina & Squeezebox, and is reproduced by permission of Joel Cowan, editor of Concertina & Squeezebox.

Until recently I believed that Wheatstone concertinas with numbers in the 50,000+ range were very late poor quality instruments. Not so. Bob Gaskins has done much research in this area, and he summarises his conclusions as follows:-

In a nutshell: it seems that between 1938 and 1974 Wheatstone & Co. manufactured concertinas in two parallel series of serial numbers; Englishes and Duets were given numbers #3XXXX, and Anglos were given numbers #5XXXX. During these 37 years Wheatstone manufactured about 2,129 Englishes and Duets, with serial numbers from about #34955 through #37083, and some 9,498 Anglos, with serial numbers from #50001 through #59498. Yet, for unknown reasons, this vast population of late Wheatstone Anglos with #50000+ numbers are not seen nearly as often as one would expect.
Read the full article here.

Dating Lachenal concertinas is unfortunately very hit and miss. I have been told that when Wheatstone took Lachenal over they burnt all their records - an act of real vandalism when seen from a modern perspective. However, an attempt has been made to derive formulae (based on known production figures over the life of Lachenal & Co) giving the year of manufacture as follows:-

    For the English system: (serial number divided by 769) + 1850

    For the Anglo system:   (serial number divided by 4176) + 1850

    For the Duet system:    (serial number divided by 111 ) + 1873

These formulae were devised by Geoff Wooff and originally published by the Concertina Magazine (an Australian publication which in its time produced some excellent material) in their Spring 1983 edition. Nowadays I consider these formulae to be flawed to the point of unusability, but see Wes Williams' article for greater accuracy.

Next: Appendix 2: Reviews

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