Antique German Squeezebox - The Grand Solo Accordeon

The thing that actually made me interested in concertinas, was the antique concertina/squeeze box/button box that I inherited from my grandmother.  All she knew about it was that it was stored in a closet upstairs on the farm when she was a girl (so that would be in the 1920s, roughly), and that she had no idea to whom it belonged.  In her words: "we were only allowed to look at it only rarely, and never tried to play it."  Our best guess is that it belonged to her mother's father.  However, her mother's brother owned a music store in town in the 1880s, so it may have come from there, either purchased or as leftover stock.

This one's brand is "THE GRAND SOLO ACCORDEON" Made in Germany.

I could find nothing on the internet about others of this model.

However, there are plenty of identical squeeze-boxes of the identical model, but with different brand names on the corner plates:  Jetel Accordion, Ludwig Parsifal Melodeon, German Princess Melodeon, and Beaver Brand are all other squeeze-boxes I found for sale on the internet.

Jetel Accordion

I think that these are early accordion/button box/squeeze boxes, probably being made at the same time as the Chemnitzer concertinas in the 1840s-1850s-1860s.  This squeeze box has just buttons on one side, with only 2 bass valves on the left side.  I think the concertinas have always had fairly equal numbers of buttons on both sides, and the buttons were always mounted right into the side of the box, not perpendicular like these buttons are.

The historical footnote for all of these instruments is England's Merchandise Marks Act of 1887 (original text of the Act here). Quoting from LaVern Rippley's excellent history of the Chemnitzer Concertina:

"In the same year 1888, there arose a major problem for German exporters of the concertina.  It took shape from the Merchandise Act of August 23, 1887 according to which the English government demanded explicit marking of all manufactured goods coming into the English economy and including any product that would be shipped to British colonies or in British ships [ed. emph added].  For practical purposes, this mean the need for adequate labeling "Made in Germany" stamped in English on all export production.  Taking effect on January 1, 1888, the concertina and other musical instrument builders began the interesting practice of constructing for American wholesalers in Germany, but labeled as if produced by an American or English firm in Germany [by which Rippley means "Made in Germany" and the brand names are all in English - not German as you might expect]."

Likely, these were simple, cheap squeeze box made by accordion, harmonica, melodeon, and organ manufacturers for the American market (the more things change..?).

Let's take a look at the inside of this squeeze-box:

Reed block mounted inside the sound board

In the external photo, you can see that the buttons and hole-cover action mechanism are outside the box.  The sound board has similar holes cut as a concertina, but the reed plates are mounted flat against the sound board.  This uses up more space, allowing fewer buttons (one row) than a concertina.  We can see that this is a "Double" reed squeeze-box, with a top and bottom pair.  The double reeds are the same pitch, so no "Hi-Lo" in this design.  The knobs at the left are probably to be used with a Hi-Lo design, but are screwed into wood blocks to prevent them from getting lost.

The lower 6 sets of reeds all have the leather covers stuck on the opposite side of the reed (I assume that helps keep the air loss down), but the upper four reeds have either lost or never had the leather hole covers.  The reeds appear to be made with brass, and there is a wax seal around the reed block.  The brass reeds themselves appear to be filed at their ends, perhaps to tune them?  I don't know the reason for that:

 

Filed reed ends

The squeeze box notes themselves are difficult to play, I think because of the huge amount of leaks in the box, from damage at one end, and simple age.  However, I was able to determine that the button-box is a bisonoric or diatonic instrument (different notes on push and pull), as follows:

It seems to show that all 10 keys are in the key of G.  I would expect the missing 1 valve would be a low D and then G.  I'm not sure what the LH valve 2 would be, maybe it would be the same notes but in reverse on draw and press, so you could play D-G or G-D and not be dependent on the direction.

Interestingly, the pattern is  similar to that of the Anglo-German concertina, with a "push-pull" scale (from Howe) - see the Right Hand notes 6-10, which would correspond somewhat with our 2-6.

However, the Anglo-German concertina differs from a button-box/squeeze-box in that it is arranged usually with two scales, C on the top buttons and D on the bottom, where our button-box is a G scale from the top to the bottom.  In addition, the Anglo-German style is usually hexagonal or octagonal, with a much narrower bellows, like the familiar English and Irish concertinas.

I'm sure that this is simply an inexpensive instrument from about 1890, and given the damage and wear on the box, is better to sit on the shelf, especially given the repair jobs and modifications done to it already.  It would be more interesting to try to make a replica: a little woodwork, paste on a bellows, and get a 3D printer to make the soundboard and individual keys - buy the springs for the buttons from a hardware store, and assemble!