Item Type: Wheatstone Symphonium No 171SummaryFull Description: A Wheatstone Symphonium, serial number 171, with nickel-silver reeds,
24 keys, and fully engraved with Wheatstone’s 20 Conduit Street
address. This model is a later 24-key version, with a full four columns of
keys either side, and with a button layout identical to that which would be
used on the very earliest Open Pallet Wheatstone English system
concertina. (See the
Open Pallet
in The Collection). In later models, such as the Horniman Museum Wayne
Collection
44-key Symphonium, Museum No M17a-1996,
their layout of keys more fully introduces the ”English” fingering
system, used on the first of the Wheatstone concertinas.
The 1829 Patent
has images of an early form of bellows powered instrument, with reeds and
levers from the Symphonium added to it. This item includes the original
Antiques Gazette advert, advertising the sale of this item, and
also some pages of images from Neil Wayne’s research upon an incomplete 20-key
”Gliding-Reed” Symphonium, in the Horniman Museum’s Boosey
Collection as Item 2004.808, Entry No E83.170, with reed-tongues of gold,
(some of fish-tailed profile, and in which each reed can be shortened or
lengthened via a sliding adjuster. Source Catalogue No: The Concertina Museum: C15.01-002 |
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Created August 2009 by Neil Wayne
Last Modified 07 February 2012 by Neil Wayne, Chris Flint, Wes Williams
This page created Tuesday 14 February 2012.