I just found a concertina in Maine. I was wondering if anyone had any info on it. It has a foil seal on it of an italian clown(?) on it. And it is stamped "Regoletta", made in Italy. It's definitely not the most quality concertina, but to my untrained hands it seems alright. Any got info?

Nate

Hello,

I see you are not getting much help here.

I would classify your concertina as "modest" and potentially enjoyable albeit limited in its ability to perform and sound like the concertinas of some of the recorded masters of the genre.

How is that for a nice run-on sentence?

My first concertina was a cheap and cheerful chinese CSO (concertina shaped object) There is no reason to suppose that yours might not be even better than my first instrument.

But, please don't judge all concertinas based on the one you have in your hands.

You will very likely have, in comparison to a nicer concertina:

leaky bellows
stiff bellows
stiff action
sticky buttons
poorly responding reeds
out of tune reeds

of course, when face with a 25 mile forced march and a dearth of proper transportation, even a a half dead swaybacked army mule sounds attractive.

Here are some pictures of the concertinas I build.

http://hmi.homewood.net

Well, I have no idea how good of a concertina this is, but the bellows aren't appearing to be leaky (I don't know how stiff a concertina is suppose to be, but I could immediately play a few tunes without running out of air either way), and I certainly wouldn't classify them as stiff, but, again, I wouldn't know what a concertina should be like. The buttons don't stick and very surprisingly the reeds seem resonably in tune. The only problem seems to be that one button (if you play at a somewhat high pressure) will play two notes (sort of self harmonising) at once. I believe this may be due to one of the leather vlaves(?). I don't know the terminology.

Your concertinas are absolutely gorgeous. this one here certainly pales in comparison. Do you know anything about this company that made mine? It seems to be going well enough to see if I like playing the concertina. I'm an uilleann piper, but was looking to play something completely different, something that could play quieter and without much effort (and wthout tuning!). I may have found that instrrument. Thanks for your help.