Considering buying a '120' year old melodeon-buying+repair

[dragonaura]

So I am going around today to look at inspecting and buying a melodeon that was advertised as being '120' years old which they have owned for 70 years. It is $45 (the same price I have brought my other working melodeons for, but this one would be a fair repair job. Unseen I say it is an Apollo brand, 2 stop button accordion. From the photos it looks very dusty, possibly from improper storage, with some buttons missing. I am going to inspect it today, looking for telltale signsof damage, including: leaky bellows, mould, rust, smells and notes that rattle. I realise that if I do end up buying it it will need to go to the repair man (possibly around the country, New Zealand, or overseas) and will require a fair financial outlay to get it re waxed and any other repairs done.
The seller knows nothing about accordions as far as I can tell, so I am hopefully going to try to identify its repairability on my visit.
I was posting this to ask if there is any thing major I have missed to look for on something potentially this old, and for any repairs out there, how much would you charge as an estimate to do the repairs. I realise that repair cost would vary with the opening up.
Buy any way thanks for any advise you have

 

[Tom]

Make sure all the reeds are there. That the key mechanism works. Look for cracks in the wood. Check out the soundness of the seal whare the bellows meet the body. Check for missing felt on the keys. Check the air release valve.You say there are some buttons missing. Check for how the buttons spring back, the quality of the springs. Verify the relavent mechanisms are ok. Look for physical holes in the bellows. It's impossible to say what the repair cost would be without good pictures, then only a guess. If all the reeds need rewaxing figure at least $200. Another $100 for incidental repairs. That is a bad case scenario average estimate from me and at best a wild wild guess based on the age of the accordion. The guess was free, that should give you a sense of it's value without seeing pictures!!!!,!!!,

Are you a collector or player?

 

[dragonaura]

Just came back from having a look at this. The accordion was a child size melodeon that does indeed seem to be 100 years old. It was about half the size of my four stop melodeon, and Im a bit dubious about the merit of repairing it. Visually although nice looking for its age it was very dusty and dirty, with the metal buttons rusted. The bellows did have a hole about an inch long where two sections came together, which I dont know if that would be repairable. The bellows are very leaky for that very reason. The springs on the buttons seem to be responsive and there were no cracks in the wood. The buttons were this style:
http://www.lansegriseaccordions.com/no21.jpg
But some of the bits that covered the holes were missing
because of the missing buttons I could not tell if the reeds were there for this buttons but the ones that were there were out of tune possibly rusty. There was also something rattling in the inside. The seal between the bellows and the wood looked good.
I am a player primarily as I havent brought more then one accordion at a time yet. I could put up the photo from the auction, but I have none to my ownas my camera and phone ran out of battery just as I got to the ladies house. I think though thus would be a nice one to own the repair costs might be too expensive to get out fully restored, and perhaps I could save that money towards buying a big, nice accordion.
Just out of curiosity, in a condition as described would this accordion be able to be restored to a good condition for under $1000?

 

[Soulsaver]

Good info from Tom - but you MAY get additional info from a specialist melodeon site - like http://forum.melodeon.net/
Top people on there. if you do need a repairer and you decide to send to the UK, consider http://www.accordionmagic.com/ ‎

 

[Tom]

In my humble opinion it's not worth restoing unless you do it yourself as a project because you enjoy that sort of thing. If you're going to spend that much on the antique it's for collectable value, I don't recommend you try to have a professional restore it to play - I think you would be much better off spending that money towards a melodeon in better shape, it will play sooner and will not need the constant tender loving care. However, for the price it would be a fun project to tinker with if you have that sort of interest. This is only my opinion and ypu should listen to other people too.

 

[dragonaura]

So, I've thought for a while about buying this and trying to repair it myself as a first delve into repairing these, of course anything too hard I could get it checked over and done by a professional, and I think for the price of buying this and an old accordion it might be worth while. I've had had a look at the melodeon.net and saw a huge thread on the chanson accordions and I was wonderingif firing the parts of a toy accordion would be the right size, and which brands produce a good healthy of sound. This would be important if I was going to go through the trouble of repairing this. Anyways since there is a big thread there I will try to ask there once my registration to melnet comes through. Thanks for the advise here. Maybe when I get on to this project I will post pictures and definitely ask lots of questions. When you have an accordion that has been repaired to a large extent does it break down I'm quality and require more frequentmaintenance then other unrepaired accordions. I think that when I got round to the stage of sending it away for 4 waxing I could send my other melodeons at the ssme time for rewaxing and tuning.

 

[TomBR]

In my humble opinion its not worth restoing unless you do it yourself as a project because you enjoy that sort of thing. If youre going to spend that much on the antique its for collectable value, I dont recommend you try to have a professional restore it to play - I think you would be much better off spending that money towards a melodeon in better shape, it will play sooner and will not need the constant tender loving care. However, for the price it would be a fun project to tinker with if you have that sort of interest. This is only my opinion and ypu should listen to other people too.

Having done quite a bit of repairing and refurbishing, for myself and others, I totally agree with what Tom says. To my mind the bellows are likely to be the killer for refurbishing an oldie. You can make bellows (Ive done it) but its a lot of work. Worthwhile checking the reed plates asap. If it has big plates with lots of reeds on each plate that suggests it was probably low quality when new and it means youd be rivetting reed tongues for any replacements. Harmonica repairers do that, but finding the reed tongues would be hard. If the reed plates are very small it may be harder to source any replacements needed. Be wary if the treble reed plates are less than 17mm wide.

But I hope youll find something to work on as its a lot of fun. Reed waxing is one of the best bits, not hard and the equipment neednt cost much. Do it yourself.