Two rows and four spoons, but what a beauty! 19th century. Website #3.

I love the style of those old boxes

180,00 Euro.... I'm not familiar with seeing the comma there... is that to say 18,000 euro? If it was 180 Euro, you'd think there'd be a decimal instead of a comma

Jim, EU 180,00 = EU 180 (and zero cents)
On the continent we use the comma for decimals in figures and also for amounts of money. EU 180,50 would be 180 and fifty cents.
The point is here only used to make big figures more clear: like 1.000.000 = one million. So, exactly the opposite, because I guess you use the comma for that...aarrgh! figures, numbers.. .. not my thing..
Funny ol'box, eh? I know these only from engravings in old fashioned catalogues (like Sears & Roebuck) from around 1900.

I have never seen a box like this. Why hasn't anyone built one like this here in the USA. 2 rows and 4 basses would be more versatile. You could have one row in C and the other in D or Bb. One box instead of two. I like the idea. Maybe one of the local builders could weigh in on this. I would love to see what they have to say.

Quite a few builders in Europe building some kind of like this. I'm making an attempt now at an accordion for a forum member here that will have a 3rd base/chord. I've wondered about the 2 row thing also. You couldn't use 4 rows of reeds, but possibly 3, which would be good. I don't know if anyone has tried this, but it's been on my mind.

Well, this old box has four stops, and that suggests that there are four banks of reeds, if none of them is 'fake".

And I'm guessing that it's 2 reeds per button.

You mean two stops for one row , two stops for the other? That might be it.

Yes, beautiful with all these engravings.

"Galerie 4" ("Galeries... à voir") of this small shop is a virtual accordion museum. It has some beautiful and sometimes strange-looking old instruments:
http://www.boite-accordeon.com/index2.html

Excellente adresse. J'y ai fait réparer mon Acadian. C'est assez cher, mais le travail est de qualité.
Il importe aussi des Jr Martin !! On peut les essayer.

Marc.

There's a Dutch builder Noud Martinali, who build spoon-bass accordions with two rows. At link#2 you can watch one played by Mark Sohngen. There's no website from the builder as far as I know.

Je partage ton avis. J'ai acheté l'un des miens chez lui.