I am making this up (so dont cite this or anything):
It seems possible that the CBA could have developed independently in different places. Walter in Vienna and someone in Russia might have looked at a standard three-row accordion and tried to make each button unisonoric. I would have to search out the Russian history to know. There were some pretty weird Russian systems over the years including the tiny piano accordion
http://www.riznicasrpska.net/muzika/index.php?topic=124.0
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That said, people and ideas got around much more quickly than I had ever assumed back in the 1800s. So Walters innovation could have travelled, or it could have been forgotten and reinvented by different people (in different ways later.) Maybe a bunch of local makers all saw it at the 1900 version of NAMM (big US music industry convention) and went home and reverse-engineered their own national systems. Or they just heard a report and came up with it from scanty information. I would love to know more, but youd have to have German, French, and I think Russian to try to get a good picture, those seem the likely early innovators.
-- Wheatstone’s pre-concertina “symphonium,” Demian’s brand-new accordion,” and a Chinese Sheng were on display at a lecture in London in 1830! That’s early off the mark.
It is known that Demians accordion had reached London as early as 1830 as, on the 5th of June that year, a Mr. Faraday gave a lecture on the application of a new principle in the construction of musical instruments (Ring Workman et al. 1830: 369). The principle in question was the free reed and the lecture was based on information provided by Charles Wheatstone. During the evening, Wheatstones symphonion, the precursor to his later concertina, was demonstrated and a Chinese Sheng was also on display. Just over a year after Demian had patented the accordion in Vienna it was also demonstrated at this lecture in London:
Another application of this principle was then shewn in the accordion, invented at Vienna, which consists often chords, put in action by a portable bellows for the hand and regulated by finger keys. The harmonies of this instrument are very full and organ-like, but it is limited in compass.
(Ring Workman, W, Morley, X and Arnold, F, eds. (1830) The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c, London: Proprietors at the Literary Gazette Office.: 369)
From: Journey into Tradition: A Social History of the Irish Button Accordion, Máire Ní Chaoimh (PhD Thesis, 2010)
Amazing PDF:
http://ulir.ul.ie/bitstream/handle/10344/1616/2010_Ni Chaoimh.pdf