From the archive

Notes from the archive.

Maker history, dating method and field guides — everything we learned compiling the serial tables, written down.

Why you can’t look up an Italian accordion serial number

Scandalli, Paolo Soprani, Titano, Excelsior — the great Italian houses kept no public serial records. Here is why the numbers on the instrument don’t date it, and what actually does.

2026-10-13 ↗The Hohner question

Hohner serial numbers: what’s public, what’s in the archive

Hohner has kept serial records on every accordion since 1930 — but the archive is private. What can be dated free, what needs the €40 certificate, and where the number lives.

2026-10-13 ↗The ledgers

Concertina ledgers: how a Wheatstone serial gets dated to the day

The Horniman Museum preserved Wheatstone’s factory ledgers — one of the only free-reed archives a maker ever kept. How the books date a concertina, and where their honest gaps are.

2026-10-13 ↗The tango machine

Reading an Alfred Arnold bandoneon: the one datable window

“AA” on the frame means Carlsfeld — and six-digit serials 100,140–112,625 map to 1931–1941. How to read the tango’s machine without being fooled by importer stamps.

2026-10-13 ↗The Klingenthal code

Weltmeister: the year hidden inside the number

Klingenthal’s postwar giant left no serial tables — but the community format YY/##### carries the year in its first two digits. What is confirmed, and what is still theory.

2026-10-13 ↗