This a Wheatstone 56-Key Extended-Treble with steel reeds. It has been fitted with new pads, valves, straps and a full set of new springs, and has been tuned to concert pitch (A=440hz).

This is a really nice instrument for the price. It’s a lovely looking thing, and it plays fairly quickly with a nice, balanced tone. These are good quality Wheatstone riveted reeds, and although they have been thinned slightly as a result of rust removal, this has made the tone slightly more mellow. The obvious disadvantage of this concertina is that it has its original 4-fold bellows, although the lack of folds in the bellows is much less noticeable than on other concertinas.

As always with extended-trebles, it’s worth mentioning that an extended-treble works exactly like a standard treble, with the usual 48 keys being in the same place, and the size of the instrument is the same too. Just ignore the unnecessary top notes and you have a good quality, mid-range Wheatstone treble.

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