Nothing unusual. In Stradella bass, they will likely just fall in: those are for use as converter. Now this is a 120 bass instrument that will have no need of extra buttons for C system converter use (there are already plenty), but for quint system this does not make all that much sense either. So the converter use may not take all the buttons or it's some non-standard kind of converter.
Well, given his enthusiastic reaction, I wasn't going to rule out a "love will overcome all language barriers" scenario.
It's a Petosa cathedral free bass converter with extended keyboard. LMMH(Hv) dry tuned with a fifth set that is quint tuned. 22 unique registers for the treble. Each switch is a rocket style toggle which switches the quint set on and off.
Congrats on your new baby. It must be quite heavy!
Yes it is. I haven't weighed it yet. The box has a 22.5 cm depth and it's very bulky.
A perfect storm!! How many times in life can you ever see that happening, right?
Slimmer than mine, but then I got 6 reedblocks for 4 voices while you likely have 5 for 5. And yours will make up in height more than what mine got in depth. Your bellows cross section likely will also be good for quite long phrases, particularly when using modest registrations.
I suspect it is. They stopped marking it in the 70s. My 1959 chambertone has guidobaldi stamps on the reeds. I've emailed Petosa with the serial number. Then I'll know for sure.
My Solloni converter has 6 voices in the bass and 4 voices in the treble. But this Petosa is deeper than that. I did open up the bass half to have a look at the reeds. I didn't count the blocks.
4 would be standard fare for a "minor third" converter: one for the bass octave, and three for the three non-redundant free bass rows. The standard bass chord range is then mapped to somewhere in the free bass reeds.
