Many old accordions languishing

[Gaines Milligan]

Old accordion music should best be played on old accordions. The style
of accordions changed substantially after the Second World War.
The reeds were starting to be made differently because of the the wide
availability of microphones and amplification, and the was a huge surge
in demand for accordions to be mass-produced; accordion shcools were a
bit business, until Elvis, when kids changed to want guitar lessons, as
is a legendary sea-change we all are aware of.
Then demand for new instruments tanked, and few of the old pre-war
accordions were being maintained, since there was always a dire scarcity
of technicians.
if you take your old accordion to a music store and ask about service,
your chance of finding anyone qualified are next to nil. Probably 99% of
people who think they can fix accordions are unqualified. The literature
on the subject is completely inadequate and hard to interpret.
The result is a legacy of fine old accordions that will gradually shrink
in number. Few people are studying the instrument because they don't
have any fit to play, in need of restoration, which only a handful of
people (at most) can do, or mass-produced commodity instruments with
little character of sound.