ABSTRACT
This chapter mainly on identifying some of the people who bought concertinas, and deals with some brief comments about the instruments themselves and the prices paid for them. Wheatstone and Co. found an equally lucrative pool of customers among music and instrument dealers throughout the British Isles, since they often bought in bulk. The winter of 1851 saw as many as 11 business enterprises in England and Scotland purchase 48 concertinas from Wheatstone, with eight of these firms standing among the best established music dealers of the period. Wheatstone also found exceptionally good customers in two families that played leading roles in English musical life outside London: the Binfields of Reading and the Aylwards of Salisbury. Of the 140 or so people who purchased concertinas during our three-month period, 33 were women. Thus women constituted almost 25 per cent of Wheatstone’s trade that winter.
