Squeezers fall by the wayside as recession bites?

[StevieJ]

A good time to pick up a box if anybody is thinking of taking up the instrument! But not if you've just lost your job or your house, I suppose...

I've never seen so many boxes for sale as now. The Button Box currently have 17 instruments in stock, most of them used (presumably on consignment), and many reduced. Until recently they rarely had more than 4 or 5 instruments in stock at any time.

http://buttonbox.com/instruments-in-stock.html#irish

I wonder how many of these instruments are being offloaded by people who fancied taking up the box, bought one, found it a lot more difficult than they expected and never got very far with it, and how many by people who play seriously but are thinning the herd to raise cash.

[Ptarmigan]

It's a very different picture in The Box Place

They only have FOUR Concertinas at the moment!!

Cheers
Dick

[dwinterfield]

I wonder how many of these instruments are being offloaded by people who fancied taking up the box, bought one, found it a lot more difficult than they expected and never got very far with it, and how many by people who play seriously but are thinning the herd to raise cash.

I'm waiting for someone who made an impulse purchase of a Dipper to be in need of financial assistance. I'm guessing times will need to get tougher to that.

[TheSpoonMan]

This is jsut Fate's way of telling you you should all be playing harmonica anyway

[Ptarmigan]

Hey SpoonMan, things would have to get a lot more desperate before I'd ...........

[Don Roberts]

Yeah Stevie, they are hard loaded with stock. Some of them I'm sure are for sale on consignment, and I think they have made some deals on new boxes because of the exchange rate being in favor of the USD.
They have no less than seven models in C#/D, I'd fancy a turn with each of them.

[projektio28]

Hey fellas,

I am potentially in the market for another piano accordion. See, the current one I have is an old 1930s Hohner 120 bass button one, and it is heavy as hell. I recently got tapped to possibly join a working band to play accordion, but this thing is 20lbs and I think my lumbar might explode after half an hour, let alone an hour long thing. For fun, I opened it up earlier this morning and as I had assumed it made from really nice, high quality (heavy) wood. The don't make products like they used to, eh?!

Perhaps a 48, 60, 72 or 80 bass button would be a better choice? I assume that newer accordions such as Excalibur (I found them from a Google search) would be made of lighter weight plastics and composites. Something with a sound similar to the Hohner, but nice and easy on the back pain...

Wish I had the time to learn concertina since restored Wheatstones are beautiful pieces of craftsmanship!

Matt

[Don Roberts]

Matt, I'm not sure but most likely the Excaliber is Chinese made. Don't know the quality or reliability of this brand.
I played one of the new Hohner Chinese models for a time, a 72 base Nova II chromatic. It had decent build quality, weighed about 17 lbs and sounded good. I think the Hohner company might have better quality control on their entry level instruments than some of the other makes. Watch buttonbox.com they usually have some used available.
Good Luck

[projektio28]

Thanks for the tip Don... I know the Chinese are HEAVY music instrument makers in general these days, and while I take no personal issue with the Chinese people, I have never been truly satisfied with a lot of the "quality control" in their products. But that is a topic for another forum and another day...

I will keep my eyes peeled on that boxbutton place you suggested, in the meantime I am going to keep working with "The Beast" until I find a suitable companion/replacement.

Matt

[Mr.Nate]

Hmm...there's got to be some accordion places in California? I see alot of Pa's on ebay but that could be a crap shoot!

I thinks Pa's in general are heavy instruments but 20 lbs does sound like alot!

Good luck,

Nate

[projektio28]

Hey Nate,

Well if by places you mean instrument shops we certainly have a lot of them, but the ones that carry "traditional" instruments like accordions, whistles, bouzoukis and bodhrans must require a secret Masonic handshake to get into... LOL.

There is a really nice folk instrument shop in Claremont, CA and then there's McCabe's in Santa Monica that has some neat things to look at, but I can't say I've ever spied an accordion, much less a concertina, at either of them before.

This brings up a great topic though, I wonder if any of my fellow Californians know of small, folk/trad music centered shops up and down the state that I've never had the pleasure of visiting?

Matt

[Baja_Manitoba]

StevieJ wrote:

>Squeezers fall by the wayside as recession bites?

>I've never seen so many boxes for sale as now....I wonder how many of these instruments are being offloaded by people who fancied taking up the box, bought one, found it a lot more difficult than they expected and never got very far with it, and how many by people who play seriously but are thinning the herd to raise cash.<


I don't know about squeezeboxes, but on several forums related to upper-end guitars, people are selling their 2nd/3rd/4th guitars to raise money. So, I think that might explain the presence of added instruments on the market.


But as for me, a quiet evening of playing my accordion at home is a splendid and inexpensive way to ride out a recession.


Jay