This is a Wheatstone 30-Key Anglo in C/G with steel reeds. It has been fitted with new pads and valves, and tuned to concert pitch (A=440hz). The serial number is 23394.

This is a very interesting instrument for a couple of reasons. The first, is that we believe this is one of the first anglo concertinas Wheatstone ever made. This is a period that isn’t covered by the available Wheatstone ledgers so we can’t know for sure, but we can’t remember seeing a Wheatstone anglo with a lower serial number than this. Secondly, the bellows papers are a design which we have never seen before. We’re pretty confident that they are original, so this perhaps suggests that Wheatstone were originally putting a brand new design that was meant for all of their anglos, but changed their minds fairly soon after. The papers aren’t in fantastic condition, but we’ve decided to leave them as they are due to their rare originality.

As for the concertina as a playing instrument, it’s a lovely thing. A responsive player with a fantastic balanced tone- the perfect combination!

A very nice, and very rare thing.

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