Check this out... for a few bucks, this could be a nice little project.

Can anyone explain why this has two stop knobs and only one row of sound holes? Also, is anyone surprised that it's a nine-button?

Jim Meloche

On the box I'm doing up at the moment it has 2 stops with one hole as well. This box is probably from the same period.

If it's the same as mine, there are 2 banks of reeds but one stop is false (it just moves a piece of wood inside). The hole leads to a chamber underneath which serves both lots of reeds. The working stop then operates back from the face plate at the back of the chamber and is in front of one set of reeds.
The big downside of this is you can't close off both sets of reeds for tuning. I've resolved this by taking out the set without the stop whilst I tune the other set of reeds. These can then be closed off while the second set are tuned.

The other major problem, other than leaking bellows and pretty much every moving part needing replacement, is it's tuned nowhere near concert pitch. It's somewhere around 40 cents over C#.

Great fun to do it but don't plan to take out to a gig any time soon.