I don’t know squat about accordions – how to play them and how to really appreciate their sound. But when I stumbled onto about a half dozen at auction recently, I was taken by the artistic design of the instruments themselves.
They looked like miniature pianos sitting there on the table, their bellows hidden, and for a minute, I wasn’t sure if they were accordions. I learned later that they were called piano accordions.
They all appeared to be antique with their fancy grillwork and bodies that looked to be made of Bakelite or a high grade of plastic. I had seen accordions sold singly at auction before, but this was the first time I’d seen so many together. And laid out there on tables against a back wall at the auction house, they were impressive. Even with all the dust and dirt on them.
This had to be someone’s collection or the auction house had lucked up on several accordions owned by different people. That, though, seemed unlikely. These seemed to have been bought and kept for a reason and a cause, and I suspect the reason was that the owner loved rather than played them.
They had some names I was familiar with – Wurlitzer – and others new to me – Farfisa and Excelsior.
Even one of them, I said to my auction buddy Janet, would be lovely as a conversation piece in a music room – they were that special.
One of those up for sale was made by the grand dame of accordion makers, Hohner, whose name I recognized as a maker of harmonicas. The company began making accordions in the mid-19th century, and a museum in Trossingen, Germany, houses a collection of Hohner instruments, films and papers.
The accordion goes back to the early 19th century in Italy, where it was patented by a Vienna instrument maker in 1829, according to several sites. Some sites noted that the instrument itself had been created by a German maker seven years before.
The piano accordion apparently made its debuted in the mid-1800s. It was popularized in this country in the early 1900s by vaudeville performers Guido and Pietro Deiro who, according to one website, liked the instrument because it had piano keys rather than the traditional buttons ones commonly used in Europe. That, according to one website, makes it easier to play for folks who already know how to play the piano. Here’s a video explaining the keys and how they work.
At the auction house, a group of tables were brimming with musical instruments – from Pearl bongo drums to an Evette Scheaffer saxophone to an autoharp to trumpets to guitars. And as practically every piece was offered up, a staffer wanted to show that he didn’t know how to play it.
A Farfisa electric accordion was the first up for bids. A “Lawrence Welk” type, the auctioneer said. “This is one of the best.” A staffer demonstrated. The next was a Hohner in a case with accessories. Another staffer tried to play it. “You can stop playing now,” the auctioneer told him mercifully for us.
The Farfisa sold for the second highest price: $130. Others sold for $10 (an antique Fontanella) up to $190.
Here are some of the others that sold:
Wurlitzer in case with maroon lining, $55.
Farfisa, I didn’t get the price.
Iorio, $30.
