Accordion
Excelsior Symphony
Price: 1.818 EUR – 3.637 EUR
Price history
Cheapest seen
Most expensive seen
Availability: 2/10 (Very rare)
A historic American accordion line dating to Excelsior's 1924 New York founding: a full 41-key, 120-bass instrument with 4/6 sets of HM reeds and 10 treble tonal registers spanning bassoon to piccolo voicings.
About the Excelsior Symphony
The Symphony was one of Excelsior's flagship models through the mid-20th century, built with a 19 1/4-inch keyboard, 41 treble keys and 120 bass buttons, using 4 to 6 sets of high/medium (HM) reeds depending on configuration in an LMMH Dry tuning at concert pitch A-442. Ten treble switches let a player select among distinct tonal characters - Bassoon, Accordion (standard LMM blend), Harmonium, Melodion, Organ, Obö, Musette, Violin, Clarinet and Piccolo - an unusually wide register palette compared to typical piano accordions of any era.
At roughly 23 lbs, it's a substantial full-size instrument, reflecting the multiple reed banks needed to produce that register variety. Original New York-built examples predate a 1960s transition when Excelsior's production moved to Cemex in Italy, and later Symphony models were offered with tone chambers - an internal acoustic chamber shaping resonance - a detail specific to the Italian-built era.
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Reverb 1.818 EUR Best price View details
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Reverb 2.273 EUR View details
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Reverb 3.637 EUR View details
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Sound character of the Excelsior Symphony
Its 4/6-set LMMH reed configuration - Low, two Middle, and High reed banks per note - is about as dense as accordion reed blocks get, giving a genuinely orchestral, thick multi-octave blend from deep bassoon-like tones to bright piccolo-like top voicings across its 10 treble registers, richer than the 2-3 voice instruments here.
Technical data for the Excelsior Symphony
| Type | Chromatic piano accordion |
|---|---|
| Keys | 41 |
| Bass buttons | 120 |
| Reeds | 4/6 sets HM, LMMH Dry |
| Treble registers | 10 |
| Weight | 23 lbs |
Price history for the Excelsior Symphony
Cheapest seen: 1.818 EUR · Most expensive seen: 3.637 EUR
Cheapest seen
Most expensive seen
The history of the Excelsior Symphony
Excelsior was founded in New York in 1924 by Italian immigrant brothers Egisto and Roberto Pancotti, and the Symphony Grand variant was the company's most expensive model through the 1940s-50s before production shifted entirely to Italy in the 1960s, making pre-1960s New York-built Symphony accordions a distinct collector category from their Italian-made successors.
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