Hi,
So antique flutes were getting a little boring, so I thought I would tackle a concertina restoration… Am I crazy? Probably…
I need a new bellow…
A little crack repair.. and maybe a few bits here and there…
Sound boards look pretty clean.
Daiv made me do it… 
what can i say? anybody want me to make you buy an instrument that’s going to be a financial nightmare? i’m sure i could find something…
An instrument like that needed someone to love it.
And deserved it, more to the point. It’ll be gorgeous.
You crazy, man.
Maybe a nice 3-row next time?
What a beautiful instrument, I am sure restoring it will be a great project, and no doubt the results will be worth the time invested! Of all the Wheatstones I have seen in recent memory, this one is gorgeous…
Matt
Have fun and good luck, Jon! And check your e-mail. 
That looks in pretty good nick, actually. Many of the valves look fine (it looke like it’s been stored on its end for a while though!), and I can’t tell from the pics whether or not the bushing material should be replaced.
have fun! I’ve done some basic restoring of anglos, it’s quite enjoyable when it’s not devilishly frustrating, hehe.
You probably know this, but if the serial number is legible, you can look up the instrument in Wheatstone’s ledgers and find out when it was sold and to whom.
http://www.horniman.info/INDEX.HTM
People at the concertina.net forums put me onto this when I was looking for information on a similar instrument that had belonged to my late uncle.
Good luck with the restoration.
It looks like your Wheatstone concertina was sold on April 13, 1865 to “Smith Elder” with numbers that follow of 9.9.0. I am not entirely sure what those numbers mean in the ledger though…
Thanks for the input, it should be a fun project.
I will post more photos when I get into it, it still has to arrive from
South America. It has a nice case that it was stored in, so I guess that helped.
The ledger is so cool, thanks! I wonder what the 9.9.0 stands for?
Perhaps £9.9s.0d (nine pounds nine shillings and no pence), or nine guineas. A fair amount of loot at the time. (Britain didn’t change over to decimal currency until 1971.)
In fact, looking again, I’m sure that’s what it means - figures like 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence, or half a guinea) and 8/8/- (eight pounds eight shillings, or eight guineas) are a dead giveaway. The “/-” was used to denote whole shillings with no pence.
Thanks, I thought it might be money, but couldn’t get my mind around pounds and chilling…
So roughly 1865 standards- $40 American dollars so that would be $80 in modern times, does that sound right? 
9 pounds in 1865 had the same buying power as 1168.38 current dollars.
9 shillings in 1865 had the same buying power as 58.42 current dollars.
Kevin Krell
That sounds better Kevin, I feel better now… 
Silly me for not thinking it could be the amount the person paid for it in the days of old… 
Matt
i didnt think of it either. when i was trying to find the concertina in the ledger a couple days ago, i thought that those were serial numbers! needless to say, i wondered why none of their serial numbers were in order…
Well I am elbow deep into my Cocnertina project, looks to be a lot of fun. I am rebuilding the fret board at the moment.
To hold me over, until I finish it, I found a virtual wheatstone, looks just like mine, so I can play online…
http://www.id-werbeagentur.com/concertina/
Ooooh, the cat did not like that!
So, I received all my concertina spares, almost 300 parts! Springs, valves, pads sampers, leather doo-dads, felt thingys… Also, “The Concertina maintenance manual”, looks like the perfect thing to accompany me in my restoration.
The fret board is coming along nicely too, I am waiting for some Honduras Rosewood to show up, to replace the missing fret work. I have two weeks in the desert, so I thought it would be a nice time to glue on all those valves, and new pads! Photos to follow… 
Careful…once you start playing that little baby, you won’t want to play anything else.
They are so addictive.