Dave “Dave’s Picks” Polaschek reminded me via email that today, January 13th, is the anniversary of Anthony Faas’ filing of a first U.S. patent — number 11062 — for accordions, or more accurately, “certain new and useful Improvements in Accordions”.

(The oldest patent for the accordion belongs to Cyrill Demian from Vienna; that one is dated May 1829. I’ll celebrate that day later this year.)

Pictured below are Anthony Faas and the result of his work, approximately 150 years later…


From Faas to Kick Aass! Left: Anthony Faas of Philadelphia, US patent holder for “certain new and useful Improvements in Accordions”. Right: Yours truly rockin’ out at Kick Ass Karaoke. That’s Jeff Kahl holding the mic.

The US Patent site seems to mangle the images of Faas’ patent, so I’ve posted them in an Accordion Patent photo album, which you can view in either album or slideshow format.

I recommend that you celebrate this day with some accordion music. If you don’t have any, give The Decemberists’ The Mariner’s Revenge Song [6.0MB, MP3], one of the big indie rock songs of 2005, a listen.

Joey deVilla

View Comments

  • Have you ever stopped to LOOK at the date on the photo above-- it clearly says JUNE 13, not January!! Apparently someone jotted down "Jun" and they or another misread it as "Jan". Result - you are all observing the WRONG DAY!!

    Oh, and here's another blogger who noticed the mistake, apparently from looking at your graphic above (since he, in fact, links to it to make his point).

  • My brother and I were both accordian players and still have our faithful Excelsior accordians!

Recent Posts

Meanwhile, in Florida…

Tropical Storm Helene is now Hurricane Helene, and its closest approach to Tampa Bay happens…

1 week ago

Meanwhile, in Tampa…

I want to know, but I also don’t want to know.

1 week ago

Tropical Storm Helene

Once again, I’m hoping that the vibes from the clown cemetery that’s been protecting Tampa…

1 week ago

Unexpected: Body Count’s cover of “Comfortably Numb” with David Gilmour on guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl8zhYA0BHU Definitely not anything I would’ve predicted.

2 weeks ago

A new Villages loofah just dropped

Oh, my sweet summer child, do you not know about the “Loofah Code” in The…

2 weeks ago

BBC News just pulled a “FOX News”

...and by that, I mean, being completely ignorant of the larger world outside the U.S.…

2 weeks ago