"PAN's" a brief history

[JIM D.]

This tread is of history of models of USmade PANcordions & Italian made PANcordions ( Crucianelli) . The information here might just be of interest
to members unfamiliar to the design & history of the models of PANcordion. Some of the history here has appeared in print and some is from
knowledgeable word of mouth. My word of mouth knowledge stems from my visits to Ernest Deffner Inc. of New York City. Ernest Deffner was the
owner & the US distributor of the Titano & PANcordion brands. In the late 60's I was working full time for Falcetti Music a Titano dealer and back in the
time it was more economical to drive to NYC than having accordions shipped. Back in the day the trip only took a little less than 3 hours ( 3 1/2+ hours
today) and gas was inexpensive (5 gal. for $1.00). This visits would last for a day trying models of Titanos and PANcordions. The late Emil Baldoni
(my first mentor) was head of the repair Dept. and an absolute wealth of information not found in print today. Deffner already a distributor of brass
& wood instruments joined forces with Robert Pancotti in the late 40's. Robert Pancotti Had left his family owned Excelsior Accordion Co. to
develop & patent a series of accordion innovations which were profound at the time. They founded the firm PANcordion Inc. and purchased the old
Wurllitzer accordion factory in Long Island, NY. Here they built hand made accordions that featured the innovation "Directone" a patented design
that was and is unique as it carries 30% more carrying power to the accordion. There was no need for a model with Cassoto as the accordion body
itself was and is a tone chamber. They featured those elongated shifts affording access to tone changes from any keyboard playing position.
These PANcordions were favored by professional accordionist such as Lawence Welk, Myron Floren, & Frankie Yankovic to name a few.
This new PANcordion factory had more than 40 craftsmen building hand made accordions in the late 40's & thru the 50's. Among some of the
craftsmen were John & Angelo Magnante (brothers of Charles Magnante) , Natale Frosini ( Pietro Frosini's brother), to name a few.
In the 60's as with all the US accordion firms it was found economically necessary to develop an Italian made line of their models. Deffner chose
the firm of Sante Crucianelli to set up production for the US market. The now closed Crucianelli factory at the time produced models of now late
PANcordion, PANitailia,, Crucianelli, & Video. All models of excellent build.


And just a note Crucianelli labeled some of their own designs PAN's such as the Batton Tone Chamber but it was not a "Directone" design.

 

[debra]

Great idea to start this thread!
For the first 15 years or so of playing the accordion I played Crucianelli. For maybe 10 years I played a "Super Video" which is a pretty standard Italian (non-cassotto) accordion. I still have one of these. My younger brother pleyed a Crucianelli Artist, which has 8 flapper registers and it had some features that I believe were the "Directone" sound enhancers. (I checked the patent and recent pictures and I'm sure that's what it was.) My recollection is that while the Directone was supposed to give the accordion more "power" the grille construction did not allow a lot of the sound to come out (compared to a normal mostly open grille). When we played together the general observation was that the Super Video (standard Italian accordion construction) was at least as loud as the Directone construction, if now louder (and accordions with cassotto are definitely louder).
The quality of these instruments was excellent. The Crucianelli factory suffered from a fire. Fires were not uncommon and sometimes caused by the highly flammable celluloid catching fire when being "processed" for use in/on an accordion. Where the old Crucianelli factory was is now the site of Hotel Parco (in Castelfidardo of course).
Jim knows all this. I'm just adding some of my own experience with Crucianelli here.

 

[nagant27]

This is great history. I love reading this. It’s so cool to read how brothers of some of the most famous icons of accordion were involved in accordion making too. So much of accordion making was a family affair it seems.

as for the more closed grill design, have you noticed how so many of the early pans have a modified grill to open it up?

also since the American manufacturing was for a relatively short time, any idea how many actual pancordions were made here? I’m thinking couldn’t be that many.

 

[Chickers]

What a great story. Very interesting history, and a pleasure to have someone share their knowlege and personal experience.
I'm envious that soo many of you were able to live through the "golden era of accordions". How neat .
Thank you all for you comments.
CHICKERS

 

[nagant27]

I thought I would add to this thread or update it with what I have more recently learned about ny made pancordions. I’m hoping jim will add to it. My understanding is they originally had 4 toggle switches, one for each reed. (HMML or LLMM or MMML- not sure if the triple middles were changed later or made that way originally ?). I now as wondering if the 8 flappers switches that are like registers today that are a certain combination of reed banks were on later ones or only Italian made ones?
The pancordion logo was right on their unique designed grill on the ny made pans? Although I have seen pix where it is on the front like most accordions like a semi circle. I’m thinking these batons were possibly when they transitioned to Italy manufacturing?
The models I have come across are the baton, fiesta, and zephyr. The batons have 2 bass registers and the others had one. I believe they all had hand made reeds? I’m not certain on this. I’m pretty sure all batons did though? I’m not sure if there were any other differences between these 3 models?
The ones I’ve come across all have the green felt under the keyboard and on the pallet valves.
Finally I was wondering if the 4 flapper switch pans were all made in ny or if they also did it like this on Italian made ones too?

I think it would be great to have more pancordion information all collated together here. Pans have Great history snd great accordions.

 

[JIM D.]

When PANcordion's were made in New York,NY there were many variations made ordered and sold.
In the 60's was production was switched to Crucianelli of Italy. Over the last 60years they can be found with
The Badge PANaccordion that was used on American imports. & The badge Crucianelli that was used.for Europe.
And later all came with both PANaccordion & Crucianelli badges on the same box.
I have one in the shop like this -- It says Crucionelli on the upper front along with PANatalia under it.

And be careful as 50% of the time some of the Italian made Pan's have updated parts not found in American models.
Always check the nationality of the box when searching for parts.

 

[Alan Sharkis]

This tread is of history of models of USmade PANcordions & Italian made PANcordions ( Crucianelli) . The information here might just be of interest
to members unfamiliar to the design & history of the models of PANcordion. Some of the history here has appeared in print and some is from
knowledgeable word of mouth. My word of mouth knowledge stems from my visits to Ernest Deffner Inc. of New York City. Ernest Deffner was the
owner & the US distributor of the Titano & PANcordion brands. In the late 60's I was working full time for Falcetti Music a Titano dealer and back in the
time it was more economical to drive to NYC than having accordions shipped. Back in the day the trip only took a little less than 3 hours ( 3 1/2+ hours
today) and gas was inexpensive (5 gal. for $1.00). This visits would last for a day trying models of Titanos and PANcordions. The late Emil Baldoni
(my first mentor) was head of the repair Dept. and an absolute wealth of information not found in print today. Deffner already a distributor of brass
& wood instruments joined forces with Robert Pancotti in the late 40's. Robert Pancotti Had left his family owned Excelsior Accordion Co. to
develop & patent a series of accordion innovations which were profound at the time. They founded the firm PANcordion Inc. and purchased the old
Wurllitzer accordion factory in Long Island, NY. Here they built hand made accordions that featured the innovation "Directone" a patented design
that was and is unique as it carries 30% more carrying power to the accordion. There was no need for a model with Cassoto as the accordion body
itself was and is a tone chamber. They featured those elongated shifts affording access to tone changes from any keyboard playing position.
These PANcordions were favored by professional accordionist such as Lawence Welk, Myron Floren, & Frankie Yankovic to name a few.
This new PANcordion factory had more than 40 craftsmen building hand made accordions in the late 40's & thru the 50's. Among some of the
craftsmen were John & Angelo Magnante (brothers of Charles Magnante) , Natale Frosini ( Pietro Frosini's brother), to name a few.
In the 60's as with all the US accordion firms it was found economically necessary to develop an Italian made line of their models. Deffner chose
the firm of Sante Crucianelli to set up production for the US market. The now closed Crucianelli factory at the time produced models of now late
PANcordion, PANitailia,, Crucianelli, & Video. All models of excellent build.


And just a note Crucianelli labeled some of their own designs PAN's such as the Batton Tone Chamber but it was not a "Directone" design.

Thanks for that, Jim. I was in that factory when I was much younger. It was in the Long Island City of Queens, one of the Five Boruoghs of

This tread is of history of models of USmade PANcordions & Italian made PANcordions ( Crucianelli) . The information here might just be of interest
to members unfamiliar to the design & history of the models of PANcordion. Some of the history here has appeared in print and some is from
knowledgeable word of mouth. My word of mouth knowledge stems from my visits to Ernest Deffner Inc. of New York City. Ernest Deffner was the
owner & the US distributor of the Titano & PANcordion brands. In the late 60's I was working full time for Falcetti Music a Titano dealer and back in the
time it was more economical to drive to NYC than having accordions shipped. Back in the day the trip only took a little less than 3 hours ( 3 1/2+ hours
today) and gas was inexpensive (5 gal. for $1.00). This visits would last for a day trying models of Titanos and PANcordions. The late Emil Baldoni
(my first mentor) was head of the repair Dept. and an absolute wealth of information not found in print today. Deffner already a distributor of brass
& wood instruments joined forces with Robert Pancotti in the late 40's. Robert Pancotti Had left his family owned Excelsior Accordion Co. to
develop & patent a series of accordion innovations which were profound at the time. They founded the firm PANcordion Inc. and purchased the old
Wurllitzer accordion factory in Long Island, NY. Here they built hand made accordions that featured the innovation "Directone" a patented design
that was and is unique as it carries 30% more carrying power to the accordion. There was no need for a model with Cassoto as the accordion body
itself was and is a tone chamber. They featured those elongated shifts affording access to tone changes from any keyboard playing position.
These PANcordions were favored by professional accordionist such as Lawence Welk, Myron Floren, & Frankie Yankovic to name a few.
This new PANcordion factory had more than 40 craftsmen building hand made accordions in the late 40's & thru the 50's. Among some of the
craftsmen were John & Angelo Magnante (brothers of Charles Magnante) , Natale Frosini ( Pietro Frosini's brother), to name a few.
In the 60's as with all the US accordion firms it was found economically necessary to develop an Italian made line of their models. Deffner chose
the firm of Sante Crucianelli to set up production for the US market. The now closed Crucianelli factory at the time produced models of now late
PANcordion, PANitailia,, Crucianelli, & Video. All models of excellent build.


And just a note Crucianelli labeled some of their own designs PAN's such as the Batton Tone Chamber but it was not a "Directone" design.

Thanks, Jim and Paul. I like reading about places I’ve been! As I must have told Ventura a few times, it was in the early fifties and my accordion teacher, at that time, and his brother, who also taught accordion, rented a school bus and took all their students to the factory, where we were given an escorted tour.

My parents had already bought me my first-owned Video, a simple 41/120 with three treble reeds (LMH, octave-tuned) and four bass reeds. The seven treble switches were chromed, so you had to memorize which produced what sound. The bass had four reeds and there were two aluminum, double-acting (toggle) switches. There was a little plastic window on top of the bass end, in which you could see indicators for the bass switches. In those days, only the C bass button was dimpled, not the E or the Ab.

Anyway, we stopped at each workstation in the factory, and a workman did his best to explain what he was doing; not that any of the kids remembered those explanations for long. My impression at the time, was that most of the workers were elderly.

This was the kind of factory trip I enjoyed — getting up close to workers and machinery. I especially remember the tuner at his provino, in the only area of the factory that was soundproofed to any degree.

The US government may have made factories safer for visitors with all the OHSA regulations, but I doubt that any video is a complete, satisfying, replacement for a factory tour.

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

I've fixed up and sold a few of these. The most interesting one belonged to a protege of Myron Floren. What was strange about it was that it had a couple of registers that were designed to open the middle and high register slides halfway to give it what I termed a "pseudo-musette". I initially thought it was broken, and it took quite a while to realize it was deliberate. I'm guessing not many of these were made, as it kind of just sounded out of tune. An experiment than evidently didn't catch on.

 

[Alan Sharkis]

When I was a kid, I had an octave-tuned LMH Video. I didn’t really understand what I was doing, but I was able to half-open some registers to get that detuned, “Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” quality.

 

[Squeezeplay]

Does anyone have an idea of age for a pan, that has on the front. Pancordion in a crescent type shape ? It on the bellows side of the treble grille. I was going to attach a picture, but it is too large, andI don’t know how to make the file smaller

 

[JKJ]

… I was going to attach a picture, but it is too large, and I don’t know how to make the file smaller

There was a thread on reducing picture size. As recommended on another forum, I included a reference to a free web-based resizing solution, perhaps useful. There are some other suggestions in that thread as well.

https://www.accordionists.info/threads/reducing-photo-size.8259/post-111234

Note that file size is somewhat related but not equivalent to the image size, in horiz and vert pixel counts. I don’t know what the size requirements are for this forum.

BTW, every time I resize a picture I save the resized copy in a directory tree I called “For Posting” and keep the full size original. The smaller files are perfect for forums, email, and texting, the larger if I want to crop, print, etc.

JKJ

 

[nagant27]

 

[nagant27]

Like this one?

 

[nagant27]

My understanding is this is when they moved from nyc to Italy. Sort of a transitional period. Im not exactly sure when this was, later 50s? Maybe. Someone I’m sure will know.
For what it’s worth I have one that is original lmmh that really sounds powerful and the reeds are super responsive. Love playing it. I’d like to try it against a ny baton snd compare someday. It’s “got it”!

 

[Ventura]

it is so hard to tell without close inspection, but early on there were
a lot of "experiments" regarding aesthetics as well as nearly exactly
the same looking models from both sides of the Atlantic for others..

just research old Promo and gig photo's of the Pan's they cycled
through the Welk organization in the 1950's. don't forget the
album covers too, where usually they were showing off the latest thing..

this specific photo, the edges of the highest and lowest (the outermost)
naturals are straight edged.. most full sized Cru pans have a curve shape on the end keys,
as far as i know, but that's not a hard and fast Bible certain exclusive fact either..
just what i have noticed.. This one looks full sized though..

hey there are some Italy built baton's that are absolutely incredible, and then
their are tons of run-of-the-mill flappers that have largely fallen apart by now too..
you got what you paid for and they had a wide range of choices if you wanted
things your way

Joe , (our Club Pres) has a fabulous pro Flapper in Black that is a gem, still perfect..
and Howard, our original VP had one of the six Baton's that Faithe had commissioned
from Crucinelli loaded with EVERYTHING, that she then placed carefully with
Pro's around the country to show there would be no loss of quality with the switch to Italy

a real shame that place burned down..

 

[Squeezeplay]

Pretty much identical to that picture.

 

[John M]

. . . I was going to attach a picture, but it is too large, and I don’t know how to make the file smaller. . .

Try Irfanview. The software has been around a long time. It is powerful and easy to use. File size reduction is very easy. It is Freeware. The link for the software download is: https://www.irfanview.com/

 

[nagant27]

I found the picture online so just posted it here for the discussion.
When I get home from work I will check the outer keys out of curiosity. I have a ny baton model as well to compare.