Description

Fully restored pre-Pokerwork Hohner button accordion in the keys of AD circa 1940. This was made in Germany in the Hohner factory. It is in excellent condition overall. I rarely find this old of an instrument in such great condition. The embossed and varnished wood case is in fantastic shape and shows minimal wear for an instrument of this age.  The original bellows have green colored papers and are quite tight. The bellow tape shows almost no wear. It has 21 treble buttons and 8 bass buttons. The low buttons on each row of the treble side are the standard Hohner accidentals. The original treble and bass reeds are steel on individual aluminum plates have the Hohner “H”  or “T” (large bass reedplates) marking. The chord reedplates are a mix of zinc and aluminum again with the “H” marking. The original leather one way valves were all removed and replaced with modern plastic one way valves for long trouble free life. All reedplates were removed, cleaned, one-way valves replaced and remounted & rewaxed onto the reedblocks. Final tuning occurs in situ with the reedblocks inside the case. A new bellows gasket was fitted on one side.

As the photo shows, the metal grill is in great shape with no rust. The original front and rear grill clothes were replaced. The wooden keyboard is intact with no cracks or missing pieces. This has had an improvement to the keyboard. From the factory, the treble buttons are allowed to sink below the keyboard. This has been modified to limit the travel. The buttons now stop when they are about flush with the top of the keyboard. Often there are cracks or entire sections missing between keys on some of these old accordions. The bass strap has  been replaced at some point.

The thumb loop is old but functional. I have installed new shoulder strap brackets. The bass and bellows straps are functional.

On this instrument I’ve gone through the additional step of replacing the pads on the treble, bass and chord pallets with modern felt backed chamois leather for quiet action and good sealing. Another improvement found commonly on high end instruments is a cross-bar between the treble reedblocks. This minimizes resonances and provides more even notes through the range.

Most of these older Hohner accordions are found with numerous notes out of tune, wheezing or not sounding at all. This was just fully tuned. There are 124 reeds in this instrument and every single one has been tuned. The treble reeds were tuned with a tremolo beat frequency of approximately 2 Hz at the low notes gradually rising to about 5 Hz at the high notes, for a sweet tremolo.

Unlike most of the older Hohner boxes purchased on ebay, this is ready to play without further adjustment required. I repair and tune button accordions and have specialized in older Hohner button boxes.