from the UK

Hi Bob,
Just had a week at the Whitby Annual Folk Festival and I took along my second hand Tedrow G/D. It stood the sessions very well. Plenty of volume in pubs with literally 50 plus instruments playing at the same time and I could actually hear myself playing for a change.

Now this may sound like brown nosing but believe me when I state the following:
I visited the various musical instrument stalls which are a feature of the festival (Hobgoblin, MusicRoom et cetera) and tried many different types of concertina both new and vintage. I even had a few tunes on a Jeffries on sale at £4000 (UK pounds). With hand on heart and my girl friend can vouch for me as she was with me, I did not find one concertina that was as vibrant and as responsive to play as my Tedrow G/D and you may quote me if you wish on your website. The Jeffries came close but if I had been blindfolded during my time at the stalls my Tedrow would have won easily. In addition, of the one or two friends I allowed to have a tune on my Tedrow, every single one was pleasantly surprised at the responsiveness and playability of my G/D and all agreed that I own a very musical box and that any limitations are on the player, not the instrument. The only minor critisism came from a concertina purist one who commented "...it's not concertina reeded though, is it?"
Well to be perfectly honest Bob, I am not all that impressed with concertina reeded instruments and my tastes are for the type of reeds you use. So all in all it boils down to individual tastes (and concertina snobbery perhaps).