REVIEW

Beautiful Paolo Soprani ‘Pepperpot’ piano accordion circa 1954 in very good condition. It features middle reeds and low reeds with a switch to control the low reeds on the treble side. The fine Italian reeds are steel on aluminum reedplates. There are 27 keys. Since it has octave reeds it is tuned right on pitch and does not have tremolo. The reeds are in excellent condition as are the original leather valves. I have added helper springs on both inner and outer reed valves on the large bass reeds since they were starting to curl which necessitated rewaxing. This is a small model with 32 stradella basses. This provides low notes, major, minor and seventh chords for 8 keys. It weighs only 10 pounds so delightful to hold and play compared to standard size piano accordions weighing in at 15 or 20 or more pounds. This was made in Italy around 1954. It is in excellent condition overall. The red pearloid covered wood case is in very good shape with slight wear and no missing trim pieces. It does have a few light scratches and one corner has a scuff highlighted in the demo video. The original bellows are in excellent condition with little signs of wear on the tape and is almost as airtight as a new instrument.

The instrument was in historic A444 tuning when I received it. I have left it at A444 but retuned all the reeds that had shifted up or down. Final tuning occurs in situ with the reedblocks inside the case. There are 188 reeds in this instrument and every single one was evaluated individually and tuned if required.

As the photos show, the pepperpot grill is in wonderful shape with no dents. The switches for the low reeds work great. The keyboard is nice with all keytops level. The bass strap looks original and good and features a thumbwheel adjuster. Both bellows straps look original and function fine. It has shoulder strap brackets and I will include the used shoulder straps that were on the instrument when I got it. It has what looks to be the original, simple hard case (sans internal padding) that has kept it in nice condition.