Excelsiors with Cagnoni Reeds

[ATB88]

I’ve recently acquired an Excelsior AC Van Damme model that has Cagnoni reeds in it. I have seen several other Excelsiors, AC line and otherwise, that also have Cagnoni reeds in them from seemingly similar vintages as my instrument (late 1980s/90s Cemex/pre Pigini).

Curiosity killed the cat - just wondering if anyone out there has any info as to when Excelsior started using Cagnoni reeds in their instruments as opposed to the “in house” reeds found in the earlier models of Excelsiors, some of which I own,
since there clearly seems to be a correlation of Excelsiors w/Cagnoni reeds of a certain era.

Thanks!

 

[debra]

I’ve recently acquired an Excelsior AC Van Damme model that has Cagnoni reeds in it. I have seen several other Excelsiors, AC line and otherwise, that also have Cagnoni reeds in them from seemingly similar vintages as my instrument (late 1980s/90s Cemex/pre Pigini).

Curiosity killed the cat - just wondering if anyone out there has any info as to when Excelsior started using Cagnoni reeds in their instruments as opposed to the “in house” reeds found in the earlier models of Excelsiors, some of which I own,
since there clearly seems to be a correlation of Excelsiors w/Cagnoni reeds of a certain era.

Thanks!

Well, I don't know but they did start production of the Hohner Morino S series around 1983 and these all have Cagnoni reeds.
The Hohner Morino N series started out with Bugari reeds but I don't know whether the Bugari reed maker stopped at the same time that Excelsior started the Morino S series or already before that.
There are sooooo many more Hohner Morino accordions made by Excelsior than actual Excelsior accordions... I have done repairs on just a few Excelsiors and many Morinos...
Someone with real knowledge of history (JimD? Ventura?) will know for instance whether Excelsior still made reeds after they stopped making reeds and accordions in America and moved everything to Italy...

 

[Ventura]

as far as i know,
and
i can neither prove nor disprove this AFAiK posting
but

i can attest to the Italian Factory having researched, invented and invested in
the absolute latest state of the art reed-making equipment of their time..
Plasma cutters, Magnet controlled handling and precision robotic placement,
precise machine controlled riveting etc. Their accompanying installation
and tuning department also amazingly engineered and set up for production
with machines developed in-house by their own R&D dept. negative air pressure
and dust free environment in the final tuning area

and remember, at this time they were one of only two accordion factories
left on earth that could build 100% of an accordion on the premises
from 100% raw materials.. they even still had an in-house electronics
design and engineering dept. then programmed and built their own
MIDI-VOX in house as well, though obviously some of those
components were sourced like the Panasonic Mic Elements

They were rightly proud of this, and took the official but unpopular position
that FINISHING a reed was now far more important and bore better results
as compared to the traditional and currently available "hand-made" reed..
they tried to shift the general mindset off of the sometimes fanatic
sometimes religious demand for "Hand made reeds" by seemingly
intelligent people who had just had a serious conversation and tour
and were ordering an Accordion but yet the last thing out of their
mouths would be with an innocent smile
"can i get that with hand made reeds"

until finally after many many years of rowing upstream, mannekin pissing
into the wind, etc. they had an opportunity to absorb a big name Reedmaker
into their corporation, and so quietly, privately, without saying a word
to anyone, completely took over Cagnoni

so now they could say "sure, you can order Cagnoni reeds" and
smile back at you

but guess what..