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Avoid Victoria accordions!!!

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lispinini

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Hi guys, I am writing this because I want everyone to be alert of ordering new accordions from some Italian factories. You may end up paying for something you will never get/ something not you want. I have been ordering about some accordions from Victoria Accordions in Castelfidardo but it just makes me feel that I will never get the accordions I want. For example, there was a Poeta model that I ordered in June 2019. There was a delay of 2 months so they said they would deliver it in December 2019. To me that was acceptable. But after a month, they told me that the accordion was stolen during transport. So they started making me another one. They claimed that they sent it again in July 2020 but it didn’t arrive. Then they said it got damaged during transport and had to be returned. Now it is October, the said the accordion was ready to be sent but tracking said it did not even get picked up for more than 10 days. They just asked me to wait and wait everyday which is totally unacceptable. There are a few other orders which had been delayed over a year, and a few orders that did not meet the specified requirements ( missing strap holder, a Mano reeds became machine reeds etc). I have all the proof in hand am I am happy to share a whole lot of them if needed. I am also looking for other victims to gather around. If you want to get a Victoria accordion, think twice.
 
I have close knowledge of Victoria and must say they are a very reliable company but of course everyone makes mistakes. Sadly, instruments getting stolen or damaged during transport is no exception, and sometimes accordions also are refused by shipping companies (because of the flammable materials in and/or on an accordion). Generally Victoria still has a relatively short turnaround time. Waiting times with Pigini for instance exceed 2 years, and they do not even honor the price on the order, but you have to pay the "current" price at the time of delivery. That is totally unacceptable but it is they way they work now. The only truly problem-free way to order/buy a new accordion directly from any factory is to pick up the instrument yourself, when ready. I have mostly used a dealer (in Belgium) who regularly drives to Castelfidardo (with a van) to collect new accordions. If you really cannot get to Castelfidardo to collect an instrument you are of course forced to rely on shipping but it is a risky undertaking. I have heard several horror stories and seen the damage as well...
 
Paul, I am not trying make a post like this because I need a rant. The first 5 accordions I received from them were not done is the same specs I requested and none were finished on time ( before covid). My other friend who ordered accordions from them 3 years ago only received their accordions 2 months ago, and again, they made mistakes on specs (96 bass instead 120 bass). Then I know an Italian friend who drove all the way to the factory to pick up the accordion, and at the door he realised the accordions aren’t ready yet. This is not just one mistake that I want to emphasise on, but they are being extremely unreliable. This is why now you are seeing artists moving to Scandalli.

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Look at these accordions. How can they even pass quality control? They have sent me wrong accordions with wrong class of reeds. Basically everything was a total mess. I haven’t received a single accordion that is as described (0%).
 

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This is really bad and unlike Victoria as I know it. I know Victoria has had problems like a whole shipment of accordions disappearing after the Frankfurter Musikmesse (pre-covid). I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see in the pictures other than evidence of the accordions having been thrown around or something in transport. But surely accordions not being ready after having agreed they could be picked up is unforgivable, as is sending the wrong instrument (96 bass with standard reeds instead of 120 bass with a mano reeds). I take it you have spoken with Elke Ahrenholz about this (she is not only the wife of the boss Riccardo Breccia but she also does the final quality control on the instruments)?
I fully understand that after this many serious mistakes you want to avoid Victoria and warn people about them. I have worked on some Victoria accordions and they were not nearly as bad as some other supposedly top brands, but I have no personal experience with their ordering, waiting and shipping process. I only know stories from others, and most of the problems were with shipping and transportation damage.
 
Lispinini,
Whilst sympathising with your disappointment, the problems you are experiencing are nothing new.
If you were to read "My Life" (a great read, by the way), the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, you'd see the problems you describe were already commonplace in 16th century Italy.
The only way to (potential) satisfaction is to buy an instrument, ready made, off the shelf.
Any other way is to court disaster!
Good luck!
 
Hi Lispinini,

I understand you live in Hong Kong? I have read your first post , "Hello from Hong Kong".

Are you absolutely sure the Victoria company made the accordions in your 2 attached photos?
These look more like Chinese made instruments to me, rather than Italian Castelfidardo makes.

The problem with online orders is, you don't know who to trust and who not to trust.
Because more than one person or company is involved in production, sales, international transport of accordions.

Victoria is a well known accordion maker and a lot of artists use their accordions:
https://www.accordions.it/en/artists/

It could be that you have been scammed by an intermediary or a suspicious seller in Italy or elsewhere.

Frankly, hard to believe the accordions pictured are made by the Victoria factory.
 
Hi Lispinini,

I understand you live in Hong Kong? I have read your first post , "Hello from Hong Kong".

Are you absolutely sure the Victoria company made the accordions in your 2 attached photos?
These look more like Chinese made instruments to me, rather than Italian Castelfidardo makes.

...
I had not even considered that possibility but now that you mention it there is something really odd about the design: the grille looks like nothing I have seen from Victoria, and the brand new Victoria logo that's glued onto it looks very much out of place on that grille. I never heard about accordions being swapped for different ones during transport, but when something goes to the far east everything is possible.
Of course this does not dispute problems like arriving in Castelfidardo only to find out accordions are not ready... but indeed these pictures look suspicious. But, Lispinni, can we safely assume you showed these pictures to Victoria to confirm this is indeed the accordion they shipped?
 
I have a lot of doubts/questions about this story...
Lispinini says he lives a 45 minutes drive from China.

Dear forum members, let's be aware of Chinese businessmen trying to take over the Italian accordion industry.
It's easy to accuse a Castelfidardo accordion maker, but can someone provide some proof? Before calling them "professional liars"??

I have serious doubts about the intentions and accusations in this topic.

Please read this again:

https://www.accordionists.info/thre...ano-accordion-opinions.5632/page-3#post-62086

quote:
"
Chinese investors have shown their interest in acquiring Italian accordion makers for a long time, and one of their aims is to transfer the technology/ craftsmanship to the Chinese brands. Several big brands have been approached by the Chinese, but the Italians were very reluctant to hand over their business despite some brilliant offers. I was told by the owner of a reputable brand that the offer they got exceeded the profits they would be able to make in the whole century and it was the brand name that was worth the money. However, the offer was not attractive without a reason. Part of the deal was that the staff would have to stay in China for a period of time and teach them the proper way to do things, which was not that easy for Italians.

As for the quality of Chinese instruments, I would say I still wouldnt buy one. I have repaired quite a few recent Chinese makes ( less than 10 years old). A few were double cassotto models made for the conservatories. A brand new 120 stradella bass Chinese double cassotto piano accordion costs about 1800 Euros with authentic Cagnoni Tipo A Mano reeds. Yes, they do function well for the first few years, but it doesnt take long to see issues. My experience with some professional grade Chinese accordions is that they tend to adopt the features from different European makers. They wax the reed blocks as the Italians do. The pallets are held by plastic as in the French accordions. The reed blocks have the same rectangular shape as in the Russian bayans. They managed to do all these quite well. But when you look closely to how these accordions were made, you see some problems. For example, faux leather instead of leather is used in bellow corners. All treble valves on the reeds are plastic (including the lower notes). The reeds are tuned by machine gears so you see big dents on all of them, and of course- you dont expect great sound coming out of it. They also tend to have problems with the aluminium arms which hold the pallets. Some of them just keep causing air leaks. Some cassotto instruments have tightly sealed cassotto boxes and I had no idea how to open them for repair. A few manufacturers still havent learned that they need different springs for black vs white keys and cassotto vs non-cassotto instruments. There are also many minor problems such as fitting of felts, grill design etc which upset me enough.

I am lucky(unlucky) enough to live only 45 minutes away from China and it was easy to look for accordion parts. I used to have a suspicion that Carini in Italy bought many of their non-technical products from the Chinese factories, but if you look at something simple as a bass button in China, there is still a quality difference.

Also in China, it is not difficult to find a fake Pigini or a fake Bugari, but nothing inside the accordion is up to the standard.
Here is a Paolo Soprani with Bugari grill design. It has an Italian price tag (~3300 EUR), and an Italian flag on the accordion. You wont be able to find the Made in Italy tag on it because it isnt. The bass register is quite interesting as well.
https://world.taobao.com/item/585459904302.htm "
 
A quick Google search came up with this...
Someone in Hong Kong is quite active in the accordion (selling) industry ... and has a lot of inside information about the accordion industry in Castelfidardo...

https://www.accordeon.co/our-team.html

A Hong Kong accordion shop...
downpage... :

微信 WeChat ID: lispinini
© The Hong Kong Accordion Store 2019.
 
I
Hi Lispinini,

I understand you live in Hong Kong? I have read your first post , "Hello from Hong Kong".

Are you absolutely sure the Victoria company made the accordions in your 2 attached photos?
These look more like Chinese made instruments to me, rather than Italian Castelfidardo makes.

The problem with online orders is, you don't know who to trust and who not to trust.
Because more than one person or company is involved in production, sales, international transport of accordions.

Victoria is a well known accordion maker and a lot of artists use their accordions:
https://www.accordions.it/en/artists/

It could be that you have been scammed by an intermediary or a suspicious seller in Italy or elsewhere.

Frankly, hard to believe the accordions pictured are made by the Victoria factory.

I like people with critical thinking. This is the way to lead people to the truth, which will not be refutable.

1. I did accordion craft academy with Elke Ahrenholz, and that’s where we met. It tells you that I have physically spent some time at their factory/ showroom. Of course I know Elke and Riccardo well and I placed the order directly through Elke. To prove this, I have attached a snapshot between me Elke and I. I placed the official orders through their official email. I had the invoices of the those accordions from them too. I am sorry that I can’t disclose her phone number here but we have been communicating ophone.

2.I DO NOT sell Chinese accordions, not even secondhand Chinese accordions.I hereby declare that there is no conflict of interest. However, I am well exposed to Chinese accordions because many of my customers own them.

3. I am a Victoria dealer in China and Hong Kong and I currently have 19 orders with them. None ended up to be the same as what the order requested. Worse still, what about waiting for 16 months for a standard bass accordion to be delivered? The delay was not the most concerning part. The lies were.

I am busy working right now, but tonight I am gonna give some more concrete examples for some orders with evidence. I DO NOT like making false accusations and there are reasons why I would rather cancel all orders with them and lose all the revenues from those orders. I am not going to add any personal opinion, but will leave all the factual evidence for you all to decide.

I am not the only victim as I have already gathered a few. If you are one of them, please DM me.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned.
Jonathan
 

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Thanks lispinini. It took your whatsapp screenshot for me to realize that there were no brackets for the shoulder straps. That is an incredible mistake for them to make. Hard to believe Elke would miss this in the final quality control (but she probably tries every accordion only without straps). Maybe she was too busy with the Academy to pay enough attention to the final checks on the instruments. Still, it is unforgivable. When the accordions you order are late, are defective or wrong... you end up with unhappy customers. You indeed do need a more reliable partner in Castelfidardo if this type of error keeps on occurring too often (or even, at all as even one such mistake is too many). When you deal with other manufacturers hopefully the error rate will go down, but waiting times sadly are unlikely to get a lot better. I heard (personally, not indirectly) from someone importing many accordions from Pigini and finding that when an accordion arrives there are on average still more than 50 mainly minor things to fix before it can go to a customer. That's not good. My experience with Bugari (through a befriended dealer) is much better than that. But Italians are Italians... no matter what their name and label says...
 
Paul, let me make that clear.
1. I currently have 19 orders with them. As I looked back to the past orders, the delay rate was 100%, and a majority were severely delayed (more than 60 days). You can't compare Pigini with Victoria, as Pigini would tell you their waiting queue is long so you do expect that. Whereas Victoria tells you 4 months for a standard bass and 8 months for a converter, but you will be lucky if you receive your 96 Stradella bass accordion after a year.

2. It is no big deal if I receive accordions that have issues because I can repair them. HOWEVER, I can't turn a 96bass accordion into 72 bass. They simply DO NOT follow the orders. You receive something different and they expect you to accept the difference.

3. Talking about quality control, I know how Elke does it compared to factories like Scandalli or Pigini. I choose not to disclose it for now as I have to protect some workers in Castelfidardo and myself. I do have some reliable sources in hand.
 
from one American point of view...

Victoria has a long and interesting history, and they have made some
incredible accordions over the years which i have known Artists to
love and play for a lifetime (and one even got buried with his)

MOstly in the USA we saw the private brands like Titano and Nobel
and others sourcing their lines from Victoria, and actually here seldom
saw Victoria branded accordions

Victoria has also had a long and (from our point of view) checkered
history from their misguided concept that because they built
accordions under other brand names and engineering, that they somehow
had a RIGHT to use those private brand names, and sometimes even the
patented engineering exclusive to those names, on accordions they
would sell "out the back door"

as recently as the last Musicmesse it was reported they again were
hinting that Titano branding may re-appear in Europe, despite
having lost an hugely embarrasing case over this same issue
several decades ago

Victoria should focus on the simple tasks at hand, and stop wasting
their time on games and intrigue... it is not easy being an accordion
manufacturer in these times but it IS STILL POSSIBLE to be one, and
even be successful

i really do wish the best for them in future, and i hope they resolve
these issues with their legitimate dealer (and by extension their
entire dealership network) before they dissolve into a Fantini
type fiasco

I personally hold with "go to CastleFi in person with cash" as the
absolute best way to find out what is real and what is smoke and mirrors...

ciao

Ventura

ps: sometimes mutual contract agreements did exist for co-branding, like the original
Zero Zette having Julio Giulietti's legal permission to build and sell directly
into certain eastern European and other specific markets

but sometimes the Italians just do it anyways... like the more recent Gabbinelli
battle (after SEM was dissolved)

so much time and effort wasted that could have been put to better use
just building better accordions and LETTING THEM SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
 
Just before I start to write about my first 3 orders with Victoria, let me just show you what Elke wrote to me after seeing this post. She was trying to pull my leg and wanted me to shut up. Unfortunately I did not do anything illegal and had nothing to worry about. The next image was my reply. My next post here will be about the first 3 orders I had with them. Because of their attitude, there is gonna be more for me to disclose. All factual information. No personal opinion, subjective feelings, explanations etc. Thanks for reading this.
 

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it doesn't sound like leg pulling.. it sounded like she has cancelled your dealership
status pending the resolution of this shipment

i recommend you place orders with Serenellini or FisItalia in future

good luck !
 
What I'm seeing mostly here is a clash between the punctual Hong Kong mentality and the laid-back Italian mentality. Things in Italy do not always go right (actually they often go wrong) and that's not just Victoria's problem and not just the accordion industry's problem either. I fully understand you're upset when things go wrong, ... but dealing with all sorts of problems is the job of a dealer. You have to really earn your profit margin. Europe has problems with the northern part being more serious, punctual and reliable and the southern part being more laid-back and sloppy, and we do share a common currency which causes loads of problems. With accordions I have been reasonably lucky (nothing I couldn't fix myself or a dealer couldn't fix for me) but other experiences with Italians (and also French and Spanish) have been somewhat more adventurous...
 
1. You think she didn’t sound like leg pulling? Look at the whatsapp messages and she told me she was getting a lawyer. This doesn’t scare me from speaking about the truth.

2. she was not qualified to cancel the dealership. I have been telling her that I would cancel one specific order on Monday if she kept fooling me around, and I would cancel all orders on Wednesday if she doesn’t send the other 2 orders which she promised ages ago. I gave her the last chance and she told me she was too busy with other customers ( like always). She just told me that all 3 accordions were being sent together in one tracking number. I warned her that it wasn’t possible because I arranged my own courier with 3 shipping numbers. One tracking number does not work with multiple parcels. After triple confirming with the courier that she was lying to me, I informed her that I would cease the cooperation with her and I would let people know what happened to me.

Side note: Victoria offers free shipping for their accordions. Why did I pay my own courier? Because every time when when they arranged their own courier, those accordions would disappear for a few weeks/ months. This has happened for many times. Not to mention I have been sending used accordions to Castelfidardo for repair and used the same courier to send to Asia without a single problem. This order 2 has been lost, reconstructed, missing reed blocks, damaged by courier, rejected by customs, missing bellows, according to Elke- and I have each excuse with proof. Now she wants me to get this accordion before we terminate our cooperation. But when will I get it? I’m afraid never!
 

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