The Standard Number Combination of Bass and Key?

[zqd9853572002]

I had a chat with a guy today, I told him my accordion is 32 Bass + 25 Keys, he said your accordion is new one (of course he was wrong). But this brings me a question: why he could tell the accordion is old or new only by the bass and key numbers? And, is there a standard or classic combination bass and key?

In my mind, the accordion make is similar to "Lego", you can customize the key and bass number, the reeds, how they tuned and nearly all stuff (my crazy thinking monster: you can let the manufacture to make 41 keys accordion with no bass, and intall 7 reeds block there).

Am I thinking right?

 

[debra]

At the same time a lot is standard in accordions (because there are only a few suppliers of parts) and not standard, because everyone just does what they think is best.
It used to be pretty much standard that very small accordions came with 26 keys, ranging from B to C. But later I started seeing also accordions with 25 keys, C to C. In that case your accordion is likely "newer" because it isn't 26 keys.
Also, what is pretty standard is that whey you see an accordion with 80 bass buttons it has a 37-key keyboard ranging from G to G and when you see a 96 bass accordion it also has 37 keys but ranging from F to F. Why that difference... is anyone's guess.
A standard 120 bass accordion comes with 41 keys, F to A, but there are some exceptions. Some people add a low E (so you get 42 notes) and some jazz players prefer higher and get 42 keys going from G to C...
Internally is accordions have a pretty standard look because of the standard parts. A 120 bass accordion tends to have two pairs of reed blocks that accomodate 23 notes each (enough for 41 and 42 total, but also for 46 in a CBA). They all have the same distance between the notes because register sliders are pretty standard and so is the width of reed plates... There are exceptions to everything of course... but for the most part things are pretty predictable.

 

[Ventura]

mainly the guy you chatted with has this fairly common brain weakness
that lets him assume and believe the small part of the World he has
experienced is exactly what the entire rest of the world is like too.
so he has all the answers he needs to pretty much everything in life and
also enjoys telling other people what is certainly and obviously correct

there are so many wrinkles in the history of accordion manufacture that
we can barely predict accurate decades based upon shift markings, shift mechanics,
decorations, number of buttons here and there

we cannot even define when the pre-war general market shifted to 120 Bass
as the general de-facto preferred layout or who made the first 15" sized 41-120
or even exactly when they shifted from round aluminum rods to flat ones

much of the accordions past are shrouded in mystery and legend, especially
the brand names