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.