Hey folks!

[BaminPoTown]

I'm new here, and from Poughkeepsie. I picked up an accordion after seeing a man playing one at an event. He seemed to be having the time if his life, and I decided I wanted to learn.

A few days after the event I found myself on Reverb, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace looking for my first accordion. I found a nice looking one on Facebook and decided to buy it. It sounds fairly nice, in my opinion, but I'm having trouble identifying it. It's cream colored, a 41 120, and says ItaLyra Custom Built on it.

 

[JIM D.]

You have a 2/4 reed Italian student model from the late 40's thru 50's. It looks low mileage and well
taken care of. These were made at the top of the so called "Golden Age Of Accordions". Many Italian
makers offered their models for export to US dealers & music studios with the buyers badge. Interior
Pic's will help with the origin of maker.

 

[Valski]

Welcome to the forum,

Congratulations on your purchase. It looks like a well cared for accordion and as all of the keys and buttons work the most important thing is that you like the sound. Hopefully you didn't pay too much but you don't seem to be concerned about that. Your instrument dates back to the 1940's or 1950's which was the time where the accordion was the most popular musical instrument so a lot of them were manufactured. It probably wouldn't make a difference in which factory this was constructed because it won't have any bearing on the price because these were made in volume so that an importer could generate a healthy profit. One day you may find out its origin but in the interim play it and have fun!

 

[Dingo40]

Welcome BPT!
As has been already said, it's most likely from the late 1940s.
They were aimed at the consumer market but quite well made and robust and good value for money. It's all you'll need for quite a while!
There's an Italian brand Lyra ( or Lira) and I wonder if it's name (Ita Lyra) could be a cryptic reference to it being one of their products ?
See example here:

lyra accordion youtube - Google Search

Another example:

 

[BaminPoTown]

It is a Lira, per the man I bought it from, but I don't know what model, or what the reed voices are. I will try to get pictures of the interior if I can find a minute. There is one bass register switch and the two treble switches. It doesn't sound like a Musette, fwiw. And by the way, I am excited to have found this forum and thank you for the welcome!

 

[JeffJetton]

Welcome, Bamin!

 

[JIM D.]

The Lira name was a copyrighted brand name and only used by the Italian firm International.

 

[JerryPH]

Welcome!

 

[Tom]

Welcome Bam!

 

[NewtoReeds]

Hey all! It's Bam, this is my new account. I changed devices and lost access to my old one. For some reason, my Gmail wasn't receiving the password reset email. If I had to guess, the forum may not have all the verification certificates google looks for and Gmail may have blocked the domain as "likely spam". Provided that all gets sorted out, I will go back to my old account. Thanks for being here, y'all!