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[John MacKenzie (Cugiok)]

Just thought I'd share pix, of my lovely new (to me) box.

Sir John

[911377brian]

Ah,Sir John! The tide comes in, the tide goes out...how long will it remain your favourite?

[baz parkes]

Please send kitchen role to wipe drool from keyboard...

[pgroff]

Really nice. Love tortoise-pattern celluloid (for some reason).

[invadm]

nice one  sir J  i had a Bb/Eb Lilliput in same finish some time ago, some lucky & happy lady owns it now...this is the Hohner model that I have not seen the inside,has it got regular reed blocks or different reed set up? have you had a look inside of the box yet     

[John MacKenzie (Cugiok)]

Flat mounted reeds, and it's also Bb/Eb.
I'm sure one of our fettlers will fill you in with more technical layout details.
It's a lovely wee box, and has a nice mellow tone.

Sir John

[triskel]

Really nice. Love tortoise-pattern celluloid (for some reason).

Me too Paul! And, considering that the earliest uses of celluloid were in imitating ivory and tortoiseshell, it's always seemed strange to me that you don't see it more on accordions (though I did used to have a "tortoiseshell" Wheatstone English, and a duet concertina that K. V. Chidley made for his wife).

But, though it's not a melodeon, there's a very-Italianate greater tortoiseshell CBA on eBay, made by Hermann Buttstädt in Gera:

[pgroff]

Nice Buttstadt.

Looks like the photos are still visible for this ebay auction, on an interesting miniature tortoiseshell box labeled Settimio Soprani. Outside design is Preciosa-like but reedblocks more Liliputian.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/very-small-SOPRANI-button-B-Es-accordion-WWII-/130557499112?

We  discussed that one here:

http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,7547.20.html

Some Baldoni-Bartolis were finished in tortoiseshell celluloid (I've had one PA from the 1920s and an Irish American box from ca 1949, and one of the coolest early Irish American Baldonis is the tortoise Finnerty box from late 1920s). It shows up in various Hercules and other Swiss boxes, and in Frontalinis, Scandallis etc (especially just after WW2).

The kind that you see in the 1940s (for example on postwar Baldonis, Scandallis, etc) is a little less authentically "tortoise patterned," in my experience, but the same general color. Here's a lovely MMM 12 bass tortoise box, in low Eb/Ab but very crisp and bright sounding:

[Rob2Hook]

The reed layout in a Preciosa is probably unique and explains how a box smaller than a current production single-voice can be a two-voice (and so heavy for it's size).  One set of reeds is waxed direct to the board, either side of a central strip of timber with the second set of air holes through it.  A second flat reed pan is screwed on top of this strip, effectively the second voice.  The reed blocks are narrower than standard, although they still almost touch and there is little room to engage neighbouring reeds with the chamber wall and still get some wax in there!  I wouldn't have known all this if it weren't for a hot day when I guess the coefficient of expansion took over and the raised reed pan suffered a "printers pie" - the pressure of expansion popping the reeds off their wax. Waxing them back in is a painstaking job as you have to do them consecutively.  The wax won't wick down the sides to the wood.  If you inadvertantly put a reed in upside down, strip them off and start again.

For a picture of the assembly...
http://melodeonmusic.com/2012/02/18/inside-and-out-part-1-the-super-preciosa/

Rob.

[Winston Smith]

I couldn't help but wonder whether the waxed up cracks in the bass end soundboard of the little Settimio Soprani thing had much effect on the sound? (Hehehehehe!)

Is that a Hohner grille I spy?

[triskel]

Nice Buttstadt.

I'd have to have that gorgeous Buttstadt, if only I played B-system chromatic... 

[folkloristmark]

The p is a three voice.Lilly 2

[Rob2Hook]

Qhe?

The Preciosa is a two voice and the Lilly is one-voice!  ...or are these incremental improvements?

Rob.