Appendix III - Diagnostic Features of Early and Later Wheatstone Concertinas

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• On the Ends of the Concertina
• Labelling of the Instrument
• The Buttons of the Instrument
• The Action and Action Board
• The Reeds and Reed Pan
• The Bellows
• Notes

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On the Ends of the Concertina

'Early' features

• Open or exposed pearl pallets
• Bone or brass pallets
• Fretwork flush to ends and mounted on inset cradle
• 'Action within frames' construction, where end frames fit around and over the pan cradle
• Veneer on the end frames with shortways grain
• No metal reinforcements in thumbstrap
• Straight finger rests
• Rectangular strap screw inserts
• Double milled edge to strap screw

'Later' features

• Enclosed pallets, beneath conventional fretwork and pine backing or baffles
• Cardboard pallets
• Fretwork set on an end frame with separate action-frame
• Action and end bolted flush to bellows frame and pan veneer on end and action frames has longways grain
• L-shaped brass inserts to thumbstraps
• Finger rests with curved ends
• Round strap screw inserts
• Single milled edge to strap screw

Labelling of the Instrument

'Early' features

• Oval silver plaque label, screwed to end
• 'By His Majesty's Letters Patent...' label wording
• No external serial number
• Simple blued steel woodscrew end bolts
• Shallow cheese-head brass end bolts

'Later' features

• Oval printed paper label,on backing boards
• 'By Her Majesty's Letters Patent...' label wording
• Tall cheese-head brass end bolts

The Buttons of the Instrument

'Early' features

• Accidental buttons stamped with sharp or flat symbols
• Ivory accidental buttons with black central cores
• All-white natural note buttons
• Natural note buttons with no note name letters
• No felt bushing through end fretwork
• Button stem passing through hole in brass lever

'Later' features

• Unstamped accidental buttons Black-stained accidentals
• Red-stained 'C' buttons
• All natural notes stamped with note letters
• Bushed buttons
• Lever passing through hole in button stem

The Action and Action Board

'Early' features

• Ebony levers, stamped with Roman note 'codes'
• Solid, file-cut brass levers
• Blued steel or brass leaf-springs screwed to upper face of lever
• Lever pivot carved from solid Action block and brass lever pivot screwed to action board

'Later' features

• Sheet brass levers
• Coiled brass wire springs, spiked into action board
• Brass column or slotted brass lever pivot, stapled direct into action board

The Reeds and Reed Pan

'Early' features

• No central hole in pan
• No reed chamber cross pieces
• Square-ended reed beds
• Rectangular reed beds stapled to pan board
• Note names stamped on pan, next to reeds
• No circular pan-label

'Later' features

• Central hole in reed pan
• Cork or wood cross-pieces in some smaller reed-chambers
• Round-ended reed beds
• All reeds sliding into routed slots in reed pan
• Circular pan label, with Wheatstone address and note-name on it

The Bellows

'Early' features

• Inner continuous cradle or shelf to support the reed pan
• Early gold star pattern papers, or one of several unique styles of early pattern
• 'Bookbinder' style bellows, of thin neatly lapped morocco leather

'Later' features

• Pan-cradle of triangular wooden blocks
• 'Gold circle and dot' or even later 'common gold star' paper designs
• Thicker morocco leather and silk-reinforced lower bellows frame areas

Notes

There is a boxwood and ivory clarinet in the C M Collection, item C502, labelled 'Wheatstone & Co, 20 Conduit St, Regent St, London', as well as a large quantity of half finished woodwind parts, flute bodies etc, which were amongst the Wheatstone apparatus left at King's College after Sir Charles's death. William Wheatstone invented the 'Wheatstone Embouchure', a metal clip-o fipple mouthpiece for flutes, from the Conduit Street premises, and the sales records for the 1840s show that several of these were made and sold during this period.

This well-made instrument may even have been sold commercially from the family's shops; the surviving example has two rows of steel 'nails' or rods, secured firmly into a curved block on a hollow soundboard. The 'nails' are of various lengths and thicknesses, and were further 'tuned' by having their tips filed, so that when the nails are set into resonant vibration by a violin bow, each produces a different musical note and transmits its vibration loudly via the sound-box. It is generally accepted that the Nagelharmonika or Nagelgeige (nail violin) was invented about 1740 by a German violinist in St Petersburg named Johann Wilde, and was introduced into Britain as the 'Semi-luna' due to its semicircular soundbox, which had tuned pins inset into the edge in a gamut of two or three octaves. A little chamber music was composed for the instrument (Ref 8).

For instance, the Ledgers show instruments numbered 305 and 308 as sold in August 1839 and August 1846 respectively, over seven years apart, yet on the other hand, instruments 289, 290, 291 and 292 are sold on the 20th 23rd, 22nd and 9th July 1840, in almost numerical order.

The sales ledgers show occasional sales of 'Double' concertinas throughout 1845, 1846 and 1847, and page 71 of the 1847 ledger (Item C1046) has a separate group of entries concerning 'Double' instruments. Sales of these 'Doubles' appear to have been slow, and the instruments made only to special order. Of the three 'double concertinas' in the collection, only one, Item C1518, has a conventionally stamped serial number, no. 58, on the pine backing. This is the latest of the three, and has the oval paper 'By Her Majesty's....' label that began to be used from September 1847. The other two Items, C510 and C1519, have inked inner labels '5' and '10' beneath the action, which may indicate that these 'doubles' had their own sequence of numbers, and that the earliest ones were simply numbered by hand.

(8) Charles Wheatstone and J M A Stroh, British Patent no. 39, 'Improvements in Musical Instruments in which Vibrating Tongues are acted upon by air are Employed' (London, 4 January 1872).