Check it out.
The description says,
It has twelve keys, ten with a reed valve under each key, and two at the end of the barrel that produce harmonic tones for the notes played. It is 13" long, and about 1-7/8" in diameter.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=37977&item=3750936457&rd=1
Looks like something Walden would find and post. 
Maybe he is the seller trading under an alias!!!
Slan,
D.
That is an exceptionally cool find.
It will be mine.
OH, yes.
It will.
Actually…it won’t. But if I was rich–
It would be mine.
Oh, yes.
It would.
What I want to know is, does each key generate two different notes – and what key is it in? 10 plus 2 really sounds like the layout of the Hohner 4-stop single row accordion we own.
No. I’m not the seller, but I suspect it may be an early form of Hohner’s Melodica. A free-reed instrument for woodwind players, from a firm which has specialized in free reeds for a very long time.
Yeah, I think this instrument does use the same concept as the single row (so-called Cajun-style) accordion. The Marine Band harmonica was intended to be played in a similar style, but by beating the chords on the leftmost holes (for which reason the ten-hole diatonic harmonica is sometimes known as a “vamper”). Of course, it was discovered that some bendable notes and the gapped scale of the chord notes were usable for a whole other style of playing, insuring the 10-hole diatonic harmonica a long career.
My wife found a webpage which mentions the Hohnerette. It’s in French, so I can’t understand what little text there is (though I think “accordéon à vent” is “wind accordion”), but the pictures very strongly suggest it is indeed a mouth-blown 1-row. There’s even one model Hohnerette which looks exactly like a 1-row with the bellows removed.
(BTW, as I understand it, Cajun-style is a particular tuning for a 1-row accordion. Possibly just intonation plus slightly dryer than Irish-style? I’ll try to remember to ask a Newfoundland “4 Stop” (ie 1-row) player I know when he comes to visit next month.)
Do you think the seller would trade a Waltons with Andrea’s lipstick on it. I think it would be a great trade.
No doubt. :roll:
YIKES! What a weird and wonderful website full of all kinds of delights and horrrors. Thanks. That’s just very cool.
Umm…that there beastie is called a “Symplexophon” on the French website. The one labeled “Hohnerette” is a different looking thing. Close, but not.