Info on Swiss accordion builder Paul Greub?

[Seisiuneer]

Does anyone have any info about Paul Greub and his instruments?

He was a Swiss builder of instruments in San Francisco from 1940-1975, from the little info I could find on him he built all his instruments by hand himself.

I just picked up this beauty off eBay, supposedly fully restored. Not sure of the age, looks 1950-1960s vintage to me.

 

[JIM D.]

I have very little onfo on Paul Greub but, I do know he was an accordion builder and dealer located on 245 Capp and later 500 Capp St. in San Francisco. It seems he was active from 1924 - 1975 . He at one time worked for the firm of Columbo & Sons Accordion Co. 1935 - 1983 also in San Francisco. The last formal listing I could find was 1975 as Paul Greub Accordion Service on 500 Capp.

 

[Seisiuneer]

Thank you!

 

[TomBR]

I don't wish to disparage a fine looking accordion, but is there some pianobox heritage in the casework there?

 

[Seisiuneer]

I'm quite sure there is!

 

[Deleted member 48]

I can see some historic örgeli elements in that right hand buttonboard
Swiss accordion makers still use some esthetic örgeli elements in the chromatic models
A 5 row CBA örgeli:
http://www.reist-oergeli.ch/chromatisch.html

There is a great variety in örgeli designs and layouts, left and right hand sides in Switzerland.
Another beautiful example of the many hybrids in the family of free reed bellows...

3 or 5 row CBA oergelis with typical Swiss layout bass system also exist, eg 9x2 = 18 basses, most of the time only major basses, but customers can also ask for other setups, including minor and 7th chords

 

[Deleted member 48]

this video shows 3 men playing oergeli, with 3 different örgelis or accordions

quote:
Edi von Euw; Paul Greub Jg.1930 umschaltbar von chrom. zu diatonisch, Seebi Schmidig; J.A.Nussbaumer 24-bässig B letzte Nussbaumer und Albert Marty; Jos.Nussbaumer 56-bässig B Jg.1924. http://www.oergelidoktor.ch

The 1930 year made by Paul Greub in this video can be switched from chromatic to diatonic, and vice versa !
Something Tania Rutkowski uses in her spécial model: http://www.tr-accordeons.com/les-modeles/les-mixtes/le-special.html
Using a switch to convert from diatonic bisonoric to chromatic unisonoric in a single accordion

Another with the Nussbaumer accordion:

 

[donn]

One of the ways hes remembered has nothing to do with his accordion making profession. When he sold his house in San Francisco after many years, at 500 Capp, an artist David Ireland bought it, and used some of the stuff that remained in the house in his work. The house is now owned by some art foundation or something and may serve as a sort of David Ireland collection, not real clear on this.

Theres a kind of lengthy story I wont try to copy out here, in The Art of David Ireland: The Way Things Are

I came across this stuff while looking up background for that accordion, which was on the San Francisco craigslist for a while.

 

[Seisiuneer]

Lovely. The seller didnt know to block the bass machine before shipment and I didnt remind him. While the instrument was very well packed, insured and box showed absolutely no damage from shipment, it must have gotten a hard jolt in transit. Plenty of blame to go around.

Now dealing with this (photos below)... Way out of my league on fixing this sort of thing. I think something actually broke beyond just the bass mechanism taking a dive.

By coincidence I happen to be driving up to the L.A. area tomorrow to visit my local repairman on Sunday to pick up another instrument and hes happy to look at it. Nothing money cant fix. Working with the seller to deal with the repair cost and he can deal with UPS about getting reimbursed (I have my doubts...).

I was able to play the treble side and it feels great and sounds very nice, definitely an instrument Ill enjoy once we deal with putting the bass side back together.

 

[kimric]

I have a earlier one by the same guy, I'll post a pic.

 

[Seisiuneer]

Looking forward to seeing it. I'm definitely going to get this instrument restored to it's full original glory, it's really a lovely thing.

 

[Seisiuneer]

Repairman says there's over $1000 of damage with the wood breakage of the bass mechanism and what it would take to put it back together. Back it goes, hope I can get my money back. Sad.

 

[Seisiuneer]

Unfortunately, the damage is beyond reasonable repair. UPS has collected the instrument for damage verification, and I think it may be lost to history.

 

[kimric]

I don't thin it is quite that bad (based on the pics),but it is still a bunch of work.

 

[donn]

Extra skilled work, or more like some woodworking and basic according tinkering and just a lot of fiddling around? I guess it's immaterial for me, if only because shipping it yet again doesn't seem like a good idea and I'm not up for driving down to Sacramento or wherever he is. But it seems like too good an accordion to just toss in the dumpster without a fight.

I guess you may not know what the extra bass row is, exactly. I'd be hoping it's like the top row on the French/Portuguese 3/3 stradella, where the diagonal follows the same half step decrement as the preceding row, giving you a minor third counter bass.

3 2 1 Maj Min 7th Dim
Gb D Bb
Db A F
Ab E C
Eb B G

(... but bearing in mind that it's actually skewed enough that the Ab ends up more over F, etc.)