A (very old) Crucianelli?

[jophish]

Hi folks -- first time posting here. A bit of background. I'm new to the accordion, having never played one, but I've wanted to give it a go for a long time. In a bit of an impulse purchase, I picked up this accordion on Craigslist for $100 the other day.



It appears to be a Crucianelli, with the text "Crucianelli Sante Italia" inlaid on the front face, though it looks unlike any Crucianelli that I've seen online in my searching. On first blush, it appears to be in decent shape, but even to my untrained eyes, it's certainly not perfect. I'm relatively handy (and persistent) so I'm interested in restoring it to a more playable condition as best I can. I'm going to have a lot of questions, so apologies in advance! I opened it up and took some pictures, which hopefully help to illustrate some of my concerns.

First, the bellows appear to be in OK shape as far as I can tell? There are no obvious leaks that I can find.

Photos of the treble side:


And the bass side:


The guts of this were quite revealing in my opinion! The treble side in particular was interesting to me, as the craftsmanship appears a bit more ad-hoc than the bass side. So, a couple of "problems" that I've identified so far, with some questions -- excuse me for not knowing all the correct terms of art here

• When pressing a key on the treble side sufficiently deeply, particularly on the second row, the "pad" will raise far enough so as to bump into the levers on the row above, lifting the lever up and allowing reeds to sound which ought not be sounding (See video 1 below). Is there an easy solution to this? Some mechanical means to prevent the levers to lift further than is necessary?
• Certain keys on the treble side feel quite "sticky", and have nonuniform resistance/actuation. Some even get outright stuck and refuse to return to their original position. It seems like there may be too much friction between the metal lever arm and the wooden "channels" that they pass through?
• The adhesive on many of the reed leathers has deteriorated, and many of the leathers have fallen off and were floating around in the bellows. Should I uniformly replace all the reed leathers with new ones?
• On the bass side, a small handful of notes will sound when no keys are depressed. Getting these to sound requires a decent amount of pressure applied to the bellows, however.
• On the bass side, some notes sound particularly out of tune. A good deal more of the reed leathers have fallen off on the bass side than the treble side -- I have read that missing reed leathers can affect tuning? Should I replace all the reed leathers before evaluating the intonation of the instrument?

Video of treble keys "lifting":


Video of treble keys "sticking":


In general, I'm just wondering what needs to be done to this to get it in good playable order.

Now, for some questions on how this thing is laid out. I've attempted to map it out manually -- see below for a crude diagram.

I can't find anything on http://www.korbo.com/piedcrow/DiagramIndex.htm that corresponds to this layout. The lower two treble rows look like G/C rows like here:


however with extra buttons at the beginning of the row. The top row doesn't seem to correspond to anything I could find on that site.
For the bass side, the lower (upper?) two rows are just the circle of fifths, with rows offset by a minor sixth, and the bottom two are major/minor chords in the circle of fifths. What would you call this layout? How would I go about learning how to play this? Is there some pedagogy/practice advice? Not necessarily particular to this layout, but just for the accordion in general?

Lastly, some questions about the origin of this instrument. Is this a "real" Crucianelli? Did I get ripped off paying $100 for something in this shape? When might this have been made? My intuition tells me that it's quite old, but I've got no clue.

Thanks a ton, and apologies for all the questions! Happy to provide more info if it would be helpful.

 

[Squeezebox Of Delights]

That looks like a fascinating instrument! I definitely wouldn't say you got ripped off, it looks like a decent, repairable instrument, and $100 seems like a very fair price. What you have is definitely a Crucianelli, although as other members will tell you, it's not the name that counts but the quality and condition. For an instrument of this age (1910s-20s) it looks in surprisingly good shape.
I think this instrument is what's known as a "mixte" accordion. It has diatonic, bisonoric buttons on the treble side, like a melodeon, but a standard stradella bass like a chromatic button or piano accordion. I also think that the treble side would be described as G/C/acc, the outside row being in the key of G, the middle being C, and the inside essentially being all the notes that aren't on the other rows, plus some reversals (notes that are already on the instrument, but in different directions).
To fix the issues with the sticky buttons, I'd recommend seeing if you can very carefully remove them from the instrument, and give the pivot points a good clean, both the wood and the aluminium. There's usually a metal rod that holds all the buttons in that can be pulled out from one side of the keyboard, and you might have to remove the fingerboard too. Number the buttons first because they might spring off! If they still stick, then maybe use some fine sandpaper to widen the gap. The issue with the buttons playing when other buttons are played can probably be fixed by adding material under them to limit how far they travel A block of wood with felt on should do the trick, and will also stop the buttons disappearing into the fingerboard when you press them.
A good resource to check out is https://accordionrevival.com/, which has everything you could ever need to know about fixing accordions (almost), and http://forum.melodeon.net/ which might be useful seeing as you have a diatonic instrument.
Good luck!

 

[Squeezebox Of Delights]

I forgot to say that yes, replacing all the reed valves is a good idea on an instrument this age, and the notes that are sometimes playing on the bass side are probably due to the pallets being slightly wonky, letting a tiny amount out air through to the reeds. You might be able to bend them gently back into place. As always, have a good look at what you're doing before you do it, and keep everything in order when you take it apart, it's easy to accidentally mix up all the zillions of tiny identical parts!

 

[dunlustin]

What a great find!
Just to add that I believe the "acc" row (= accidentals) is in the key of B.
G/C/B would be a standard 'mixte' layout.
This arrangement was popular with musicians brought up on a diatonic layout (see above).
The extra row allowed for chromatic 'twiddles' to spice up the music.
In theory you can also play in all keys but I believe this was not so often the case.
From memory most popular in the 1920's (ish) in France. See: Emil Vacher
There are still players who love the layout
See also Denecheau here:

Denecheau Jâse Musette. - LA...TITUDES

Entretien avec Daniel Denécheau à l’occasion de la sortie du nouvel album du groupe. Photo: Patrick Bard. L’aventure a démarré il y a un peu plus de 20 ans. A l’époque, Daniel, déjà passionné par le vieux répertoire musette joue en duo avec Denis « Scotch...

la-titudes.over-blog.com

 

[Dingo40]

Welcome jophish!

Once you've got it sorted?

 

[Dingo40]

. As always, have a good look at what you're doing before you do it, and keep everything in order when you take it apart, it's easy to accidentally mix up all the zillions of tiny identical parts!

Take lots of "before" pictures of the layout on your iPhone to guide your endeavours!

 

[Dingo40]

Something a bit similar:

 

[Ventura]

Cavilieri de Sante Crucinelli and Figli

Cav being an honorific meaning "Knight" Sante Crucinelli being the
Knighted one and head of his Famiglia, eventually with Sons (Figli) who
joined him and made it a Family business that lasted a long long time
and was very competitive bringing Quality and innovation into
the field of accordions and eventually electronic Music Instruments

one always has to remember with these very early representations
that our Historical Hero's were still learning HOW TO MAKE THEM
and a lot of trial and error was in play.. at some point it was
build one take it around till you sell it go build another one
then eventually you got good enough to send someone else out
to sell them while you just kept at it. The fresh faced Kid who
showed up one day begging for a job as your helper a few years
later became your biggest competitor and maybe even opened
his own Shop in New York City !

often these early accordions are also true works of art, with
wonderful artistic elements that were also painstakingly
crafted and impart almost a personality to the machine

good on you to bring this one back to Life.. just take your time
and proceed carefully.. as you can see it is not Rocket Science
and can be figured out by a good Tinker

the Crucianelli Factory eventually ended up on the main road
into Castelfidarfo, just before it begins to climb the hill to the
old Citta Castle Walled area of the ancient town. Just before his place
you had the Guerrini family home and factory, then after was
Settimo Soprani halfway up the hill, with the great and powerful Oz
(oops.. i mean Paolo Soprani) having the factory at the very top of the
main street, at the foot of the Castle Wall, and being considered
as the center of the Universe by many still to this day.

 

[boxplayer4000]

jophish: Your photos and videos are excellent. Others on this site will guide you but I would add the following observations:
The reeds are not waxed but are pinned onto a leather base. The leather base and the valve material on your photos look like they may have come from the same source which would mean that the instrument has had a thorough overhaul at some time. Pinning the reeds to leather is a technique used by, probably a minority of manufacturers, a technique adopted in the belief that the resulting sound is better.
You have a fairly big job on hand but hopefully a rewarding one. Good Luck.

 

[dunlustin]

You will find a few more accordions like yours here:

Mixte (chromatisch, diatonisch) – AKKORDEON MUSEUM – "Sammlung historische Handharmonika 1830 – 1945"

akkordeon-museum.ch

"Mixte" accordions were always rare. They were generally used by pro' players who did not want to 'tangle' with new-fangled chromatic type instruments, while having the greater options of the Stradella LH layout.
Yours may be very rare indeed.
The latches are a sign of some age - 1910+?. The nailed-on reeds are usually a sign of quality.
It is likely not tuned to our standard A=440Hz. Retuning (say from A=436) may be do-able but may not be desirable for such an historic instrument.
You may hope to learn how to work with accordions. Given what you have, maybe consider getting a beaten-up old Hohner to make your first steps?

 

[boxplayer4000]

‘Mixte’ accordions.
Dunlustin: This is not a word I was familiar with. Thanks.
Regarding rarity this is a 2-row diatonic I have for sale on another site. The treble is C/Csharp and the bass is monotonic, Stradella, with all 12 bass notes and all major and minor chords.

 

[dunlustin]

'Box 400'
I had a 3-row, 3 voice, 4 X 12 bass in B/C/C# by the same maker.
Nice sturdy boxes.
Good luck with the sale -probably most likely to go in the Irish market?

 

[Dingo40]

Another akkordeon diato mixte
Thanks to Dunlustin for the tip!

 

[dunlustin]

Hello Jophish.
How many beans make five?

 

[boxplayer4000]

Another famous mixte melodeon from 1939 with its Morino 1 grille.

 

[dunlustin]

Although Jimmy's was German made, I'm not sure B/C/C# boxes ever strayed as far as the Mainland.
I believe 'Mixte' is usually for a 3-row layout with 2 rows a 4th apart (eg: G/C) and one row a further semitone apart (B).
I hadn't noticed the Morino had squared off basses. ??
Finally, has anybody else wondered if Mr Phish's name is an accident?
If not, what's to phish for apart from mischief?

 

[boxplayer4000]

dunlustin: I think the Shand Morinos came with squared off basses as well as the normal straight arrangement. The Morino fanatics know which model came in which year.

 

[dunlustin]

Box4000: Thank you

 

[Dingo40]

I hadn't noticed the Morino had squared off basses. ??

There are photos showing Jimmy Shand holding both iterations of the Shand Morino Hohner.