New SEM accordions from old factory
Ike Milligan
Subject: Re: Piermaria accordions
Ike;
Thank you for your prompt reply, and for your advice. The Piermaria
that I have been looking at here in <snipped> is a Monarque d. the other one
is just a monarque
. The "d" has hand made reeds the other does not. And I have noticed that on
the less expensive model when I have the master switch on that the "G sharp"
in the middle C octave sometimes don't get the low reed with the key all the
way down. But if I pull the bellows a little harder it does come on and it
seems to be OK for a while, or if I am closing the bellows it don't seem to
happen at all. does this indicate a big problem or is something just a
little tight because its new? I'm glad you think that the Piermarias are the
better accordions because I love the sound <snipped>
My reply was:
The Monarque is not a model that I am familiar with. It must be one of the
new French made models. Until this year all the Piermaria models were
identical to the SEM models. The Piermaria is now being made in France. If
it is the same company that now makes Fratelli Crozio, another French
accordion, I am not as confident in the quality as I would be in the old SEM
name. I might also question the assertion that the "D" has hand made reeds.
Usually to get hand made reeds in any new accordion to have to request them
as a custom feature, and pay extra. This is a claim that any salesperson
might make to explain a difference, without necessarily checking to verify
it or even caring about its accuracy. I had a brand new Fratelli Crozio
brought to me for repair that had one of the white keys cut wrong and
rubbing on a black key. I also notice the cheap construction of the
keyboard. These names, once at the pinnacle of quality, have been sold, as
public name recognition is the "coin of the realm".
As to the problem with the reed that you mentioned, there is no excuse
for that. The reed is out of adjustment. From what limited information I can
gather, I suspect that the Piermaria accordions you are looking at may not
be as good as the ones that were made by SEM in Italy, a few of which are
still available from the old SEM factory. Whether the same quality of
construction will continue under Menghini remains to be seen.
For example, recently I worked on an Italian made Excelsior 911, that
had problems on both the treble and bass side. On the bass side, the valve
pads under the bass machine were loose and rotating, allowing air to escape
throught he reeds. At the factory, someone had just laid a bead of contact
cement on top of the valve rod and over time the rubber glue shrank,
allowing the pad to be loose. The remedy was to remove all the pads and lay
a bead of hot glue in the groove, and follow by hot glue on top of the rod.
The treble keys were only held up on the edge by the key tops, so that the
most frequently played keys were bending in the middle as the tops became
partly unglued, and hitting the edge of the keybed. There should have been
some padded support under the wooden keys which had been omitted to save a
step in the construction. The palm switch was a patented "brevetto" module
manufactured who-knows-where instead of the previous way of putting it
together from sturdy parts, and a plastic mechanical part had broken making
for loose and rough operation. The old Excelsior company had a few problems
of its own, but they were not so much due to intentionally, cutting corners,
but more to a convenient ignorance.
I think now would be a golden opportunity to buy the last SEM accordions
produced before the merger with Menghini. I will stand behind the 5 year
warranty offered by the company. As of 23 JAN, available are:
Model 504 Black 5 voice treble T/C Price $7029 Deposit $2343
http://1accordion.net/SEM/html/504.html
Model Classique T/C (Black, Musette) Price $6765 Deposit $2255
http://1accordion.net/SEM/html/702.html
Model 502 Gold-Black T/C Price $6919 Deposit $2306
http://1accordion.net/SEM/html/502.html
Model 500 (Black) Price $4939 Deposit $1646
http://1accordion.net/SEM/html/500.html
All are 4 treble reedsets 5 bass except the 504 which is 5/5
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