What is the cheapest I can get one of those little squeezeboxes for that is playable.
BTW, I meant one of those little push pull concertinas. I’m mad at my wife. I don’t want a full size accourdian or anthing. I’m not that mad at her.
Try the FAQs and classified ads in http://www.concertina.net
Hey! I found one on ebay for 29 bucks! It’s bound to be a quality instrument! They woulnd’t be auctioning it off if it wern’t!
It depends what you want and what you mean by playable. I assume you want an anglo. I also assume you don’t want something that will fall apart in the first year.
If you want it for Irish music and you don’t just happen upon a two row D/G, then the standard two row C/G won’t give you a c# which you need for Irish music. Well, Bretton might insist that you can get around that; he’s right but I wouldn’t want to. That would be fine for playing in G but severely limited for D. You probably want a three row.
Now you have two choices. A Lachenal that is well restored could be fine but you would need access to a first rate maintenance guy, you’ll need a good one anyway unless you are very good at do-it-yourself. I’ve seen playable ones and played playable ones but most are rather tired and unresponsive—the good ones have all been restored by a first rate maker. Your other choice is an instrument with accordeon reeds made a by a good American or perhaps Italian maker. I’ve never played this kind of instrument but it’s where most people start and I’ve heard good things about them. My guess is that you will find something in the $US1,000-1,500 range and you might do even better. Good new concertinas with real concertina reeds start at around $3,000.
Get someone who knows concertinas to help and find that repair person who lives nearby. That would be my advice. Find someone close who repairs …see if they have a spare instrument lying around that they would sell. Ask them to look out for you. If you buy blind, make sure you can return before you agree and take it to said repairperson before committing. Now, someone in the US will give you a more accurate guess about price. My prices might not have been adjusted down far enough from $A.
You couldn’t be that mad at your wife could you?
3000$???
Uh, I think I’ll just beat her. Where’s my copper low d…
My son bought a cheap 20 button C/G box for $200 with brass reeds that he can play amazingly well. It has no C#, so there may be 30% of the tunes that cannot be played without the C# being left out.
Of course, you could substitute a harmony note for your missing note(s), but that always sounded strange to me (usually only heard on harps and cheap anglos, btw).
He did have to seal some leaks in the reed bed and work on several buttons that broke/stuck.
He has to be careful with the bellows pressure, because the notes will bend from 3 cents flat to 10 cents flat with different pressures.
I understand the better anglo concertinas will have 30 or more buttons (fully chromatic that way), steel reeds, and cost between $1,500 up to $8,000, depending upon it’s condition and history.
I’d give that $200 box a miss if I were you. Mine is a 3 row, 32 button, concertina reed number made by one of the top current makers, Richard Evans. I was lucky. I know Richard and he found it for me second hand about 2 years ago; otherwise I’d be on his list with several years still to wait. It seems to have been constructed with Irish music in mind as it has a c#-on-the-draw button on the C row, just where you want it for fast passages, which is unusual for a 3-row anglo. It cost me $A3,000 then but would be worth a lot more now I think as it was a bargain.
Something with accordeon reeds in the $1,000 range should do to get started though. Place yourself on a list and by the time your number comes up for a really good box you’ll know if you really want to play.
I can’t get an eight dollar concertina and tweak it? Crap. I thought I was maybe gonna get into this a little cheaper.
Sigh. I guess I better look at harps insted.
It’s ironic, because the concertina was historically an inexpensive mass-produced instrument. But since it’s not being industrially produced anymore, the prices are very high now. The $200 concertinas on eBay are usually accordions shaped like concertinas (i.e.: they have accordion reeds and mechanisms). Concertinas should have smaller steel reeds similar to harmonica reeds. But some people have had good luck using one of these cheap eBay instruments to learn the finger and bellows movements, until they could get a real concertina.
So I might could get by on a cheap ebay concertina? How much different would they sound? I already know what to expect on durability.
I went thourgh the same thing recently. I never decided what to do. 
You guys are barking up the wrong tree 
Here’s the tree you should be barking at:
http://www.concertina.net
I got a lovely Wheatstone concertina in an antique shop in Yorkshire for a couple of hundred quid. They are still out there.
By the way, lovely as it was I swapped it for a flute. 
Only up to a point. You need to find someone who can help you select and then do repairs and maintenance. Of course, that mightn’t be a bad place to start looking. You do best to contact a reputable maker who lives nearby.
I had the impression that there are only one or two concertina makers in the world. But maybe a good accordion shop could help. But there is a wealth of material in concertina.net, if you dig enough, and there are ads and also a forum.
No, on one site I can’t quickly locate there’s a list of a couple of dozen. If you include people who use accordeon reds to keep teh price down but otherwise make high quality boxes, then you have quite a few. All you really need though is a competent repairer. Apart from Richard Evans, there are only about four other makers who currently produce anglos I’d like to own, but since I already own a top model I can afford to be fussy.
That was a funny thing to say, I couldn’t afford another quality box if it turned up tomorrow. Oh, a bargain basement Wheatsone would be nice though. 
I know a guy in Raleigh, NC that goes to the flea market they have every Sat at the Collesseum and he has picked up several (well, 4 or 5) outstanding C/G more than 20 button concertinas.
It is a real shame that he can’t figure out how to play them (unless the tune is in C or G) He has one of those great ones, metal buttons, very nice and smooth action (name slipped again) for Irish tunes, but even if he plays an Irish tune with it, it doesn’t sound Irish. I think it cost him $350 and the bellows were airtight.
It is a shame he and my son couldn’t swap boxes, I would love to hear how Craig sounds on it as good as he sounds on the crap box.
Perhaps if you got to a lot of flea markets real early you might luck up. There are a few out there and a lot of poeple don’t know what they have and might let it go real reasonable.
Make sure you pretend you can’t play one when you try it out at a flea market or private sale, though. One guy heard the Raleigh fellow try one of his boxes, then wouldn’t sell it for the price posted. He quadroupled it on the spot.
Check out Bob Tedrow’s page at http://hmi.homewood.net/ . Some nice pictures of the insides, and he offers some nice instruments himself (although still not cheap).
Kevin Krell