I am proud to be able to list this wonderful example of the work of one of England’s two great restorers.
This is a tenor-treble Aeola made in 1988 by Steve Dickinson and sold to America. I recently bought it from over there and am pleased to be able to list it on my website.
It has metal ends, metal buttons, steel reeds in aluminium frames , 7 fold bellows and the original hard case.
The whole thing is absolutely mint and appears to have hardly ever been played. Even the case is in brilliant condition.
Basically I have cleaned it and checked the tuning. The only issue was that a lot of the reeds were slightly loose because I guess the wood of the reedpans had shrunk ever so slightly in the U.S. climate.
All reeds are now secure and the reedpans re-set. I think I only had to replace two valves-which says something for the quality of its manufacture and parts.
It of course plays beautifully and would be a joy for anyone to own.
In all my 46 years of selling concertinas I think that I have only has two of Steve’s English concertinas in my stock-and they didn’t last more than a couple of weeks.
I have no idea how many concertinas Steve has made but I suspect that there are not a lot of Aeola Tenor-Trebles in them-and you won’t find another one in “as new” condition.
A good few years ago I seem to remember that he was asking about £8000 to produce one of these instruments and I am pretty sure that it is likely to be more than that today.
You might never see another one of these for sale so if you would like a Custom built instrument made by one of our great makers-then act quickly!
