The accordion is one of the few instruments where buying the wrong kind means you cannot play the music you bought it for. A piano accordion and a three-row button accordion are both accordions, both have bellows, and both cost about the same — but they play different repertoires, and no amount of practice converts one into the other. Get that choice right and the rest is mostly budget.
Hohner Panther G/C/F
The strongest accordion you can buy online at any price near this one: 31 treble buttons, 12 bass, and a reputation earned across hundreds of buyers. It is a diatonic button accordion, so it plays in G, C and F — which covers conjunto, norteño, vallenato and a great deal of folk. If that is your music, nothing else here competes.
At a glance
| Instrument | Type | Treble / bass | Weight | Price band | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hohner Panther G/C/F | 3-row diatonic | 31 buttons / 12 bass | 9 lb | ~$600 | Conjunto, vallenato, Tex-Mex |
| Hohner Hohnica 1304 | Piano accordion | 26 keys / 48 bass | 12 lb | ~$860 | Everything else, and smaller players |
| Hohner Panther F/B♭/E♭ | 3-row diatonic | 31 buttons / 12 bass | 9 lb | ~$700 | Norteño, playing with a band in those keys |
| Hohner Hohnica 1305 | Piano accordion | 34 keys / 72 bass | 17 lb | ~$940 | Full-size adults who know they will stick with it |
| Hohner D40 | Anglo concertina | 20 buttons | 2 lb | ~$315 | Sea shanties and Irish tunes — a different instrument |
The choice that decides everything else
Piano keys or buttons
A piano accordion has a small piano keyboard under the right hand. Every note is available, so you can play in any key, and if you have touched a piano before you already know where the notes are. That flexibility is why it is the default in most of the United States and Europe, and why almost all published beginner method books assume you have one.
A three-row diatonic button accordion has buttons instead, and each one gives a different note depending on whether you push or pull the bellows. It is lighter, louder for its size, and quicker to play fast runs on. The trade is that it only plays in three keys — the ones printed on the box. It is the instrument of conjunto, norteño, vallenato and Tex-Mex, and if that is the music you have in your head, a piano accordion will not make those sounds.
Both are reasonable first instruments. The question is only which music you are buying it for.
On a button accordion, the key set is not a color choice
The same button accordion is sold in several tunings, and buying the wrong one is the most expensive mistake available on this page, because you cannot retune your way out of it. G/C/F is the standard for Texas conjunto and for Colombian vallenato, and it is what most teaching material and most YouTube lessons assume. F/B♭/E♭ is what a great deal of norteño is played in. E/A/D turns up too, though less often.
If you have a teacher, or a band, or a relative who plays, buy the key set they use — playing along is most of how this instrument is learned, and the wrong tuning locks you out of that entirely. With no one to match, G/C/F is the safe default. One naming quirk worth knowing: there is no such tuning as “FBE”. Where you see it written that way, the instrument is F/B♭/E♭ — the same thing written carelessly.
Forty-eight bass buttons is the real floor
The left hand of a piano accordion uses the Stradella system: columns of single bass notes and columns of preset chords. How many buttons you have decides which chords exist at all, and this is where cheap accordions quietly stop being instruments.
A 12-bass left hand gives you six bass notes and six major chords. There are no minor chords on it — not hard ones, none. An 8-bass gives you four of each. You cannot play a sad song on either, and you cannot learn the relationship between a major and a minor chord on an instrument that only has one of them. A 48-bass is laid out twelve rows by four columns: root, counter-bass, major, minor, in all twelve keys. That is a complete left hand, and everything above 48 adds sevenths and diminished chords rather than fixing something missing.
So the 22-key, 8-bass boxes that fill the first page of search results are not cheap accordions. They are the shape of an accordion with most of the instrument left out, and the money is gone either way.
The picks
Hohner Panther G/C/F
- 3-row diatonic
- 31 treble buttons
- 12 bass
- Two reed sets
- 9 lb
- ~$600
Hohner designed the Panther in Germany and builds it in China, which is the whole reason a real accordion company’s instrument lands near $600 instead of $1,300. What you get for the compromise is the layout, the bellows and the reed voicing of the instruments people actually gig with, at the price of a decent guitar. It is far and away the best-reviewed thing on this page, across a body of buyers deep enough that a bad batch would show.
Around $600 is simply what this instrument costs, so there is no discount to go hunting for. Straps, a cleaning cloth and Hohner’s own diatonic method book come in the box; a gig bag does not, and you will want one.
The Panther has no register switches, so the two reed sets sound together and that is your only voice. On a diatonic that matters much less than it would on a piano accordion — the sound is supposed to be bright and wet — but it is the honest difference between this and the Compadre a step above it, which costs roughly twice as much and is not a beginner’s purchase.
- Best-rated accordion here by a wide margin
- A real accordion company’s instrument at guitar money
- Light enough to practice standing up
- Method book and straps included
- Plays in G, C and F only
- No register switches
- No gig bag in the box
Hohner Hohnica 1304
- Piano accordion
- 26 keys, range B–C
- 48 bass
- Two reed sets, 3 registers
- 12 lb
- ~$860
This is the standard student piano accordion, and the reason to start here rather than higher is weight. At around 12 pounds it is manageable for a teenager or a smaller adult through an hour of practice, which the bigger boxes are not. The 48-bass left hand is complete — every major and minor chord in every key — so nothing you learn on it has to be unlearned later. A gig bag with backpack straps and the shoulder straps are both included.
Be clear-eyed about the build. Hohner’s entry line is made to a price, the reviews are genuinely mixed, and the complaint that recurs is mechanical: a key or a spring that is wrong out of the box. That is a quality-control lottery rather than a design fault, and it is fixable, but it means two things matter. Buy where you can return it, and play every single key and every bass button the day it arrives rather than a fortnight later.
The price is simply what a new 48-bass student accordion costs. There is no premium built into it, and nothing at this specification is meaningfully cheaper.
- Light enough for smaller players and long practice
- Complete 48-bass left hand
- Gig bag and straps included
- The going rate for a 48-bass, with no discount to hunt for
- Mixed reviews, mostly mechanical faults on arrival
- No low reed set — one basic voice
- 26 keys runs out at the top before long
Hohner Panther F/B♭/E♭
- 3-row diatonic
- 31 treble buttons
- 12 bass
- 9 lb
- ~$700
The same instrument as the top pick, tuned a step and a half down. If the players around you are in F/B♭/E♭ — and a lot of norteño is — this is the one to buy, and the choice is theirs rather than yours. Everything true of the G/C/F model is true here: same body, same reeds, same weight, same method book in the box.
It runs about $90 more than the G/C/F, which is worth knowing but not worth changing your mind over. Being in the wrong key costs far more than $90 the first time you cannot sit in with anyone.
- Identical build to the top pick
- The right tuning for a lot of norteño
- Strongly rated in its own right
- Costs more than the G/C/F for the same instrument
- Less teaching material is written for it
- No gig bag in the box
Hohner Hohnica 1305
- Piano accordion
- 34 keys, range G–E
- 72 bass
- Low reed set, 5 registers
- 17 lb
- ~$940
The 1305 is the 1304 grown up: eight more keys, twenty-four more bass buttons, and — the part that actually changes how it sounds — a set of low reeds the 1304 does not have. Those are what the five register switches are switching between, so pressing one alters the voice rather than nudging it. A full, dark, two-octaves-apart sound is available to you here and simply is not on the smaller box.
The cost is 17 pounds hanging off your shoulders. That is five pounds more than the 1304 and it is the single thing to weigh before buying, because a heavy accordion shortens practice sessions and beginners need long ones. For a full-size adult who already knows they are going to stick with this, it is the better instrument and the extra outlay is small against what it adds. For anyone smaller, or anyone still finding out whether they enjoy it, it is the wrong end to start at.
- Low reeds give it a genuinely fuller voice
- 72 bass and five working registers
- Priced where a 72-bass with low reeds should be
- 17 lb is a lot for a beginner
- Same entry-level build quality as the 1304
- Too much instrument for a child
What a first accordion actually costs
A new accordion worth learning on starts around $600 and a piano accordion around $860. That is higher than most beginner instruments and higher than the figures floating around online, and there is a reason: an accordion contains several hundred hand-tuned steel reeds, a leather-and-card valve on each one, and bellows that have to stay airtight through years of being pulled about. None of that gets cheap at volume.
Below roughly $300 the reeds go first and the bellows go with them. The failure is specific and easy to test for: on a bad box you can pull the bellows open without pressing anything, because air is escaping through the seams instead of over the reeds. An instrument that leaks needs constant bellows work to hold a note, which is exactly the technique a beginner has not built yet, so it feels like the player’s fault when it is not.
If $600 is out of reach, the answer is a used instrument rather than a cheaper new one. Mid-century Italian and German piano accordions were made in enormous numbers, they were built better than anything new at this price, and a great many are sitting in attics. A tuned and serviced second-hand box beats every new instrument under $400 comfortably. The catch is that servicing one costs real money, so buy from someone who has already done it — an accordion dealer with used stock, rather than a listing photographed on a sofa.
If you actually meant a concertina
Plenty of people arrive at accordions wanting the small hexagonal box heard on sea shanties and Irish tunes. That is a concertina, and it is a separate instrument with its own fingering rather than a miniature accordion — we go through the differences between a concertina and an accordion elsewhere.
The one detail worth carrying into the shop is that concertinas come in two incompatible systems. Anglo concertinas give a different note on the push and the pull, like a harmonica, and that is what Irish and English traditional players use. English concertinas give the same note both ways and suit written music and song accompaniment. They are not interchangeable and nothing you learn on one transfers to the other.
Hohner’s D40 is the cheapest sensible way into the Anglo system: 20 buttons, 40 reeds, two pounds, a padded bag, and around $315. Twenty buttons is genuinely limiting and you will feel the edges of it within a year, so treat it as finding out whether the instrument suits you rather than as the one you keep. Its recurring fault is buttons that stick when the instrument is new — a mechanical thing owners cure with a screwdriver and a drop of light oil, but play every button in and out on the first day. If the instrument does suit you, a 30-button one is the next stop and costs around $450.
Hohner D40
Twenty buttons, forty reeds, two pounds, padded gig bag included. Limited on purpose and priced accordingly — the right instrument for deciding whether you want a real one.
What to buy alongside it
Straps are included with everything above, so none of this is required on day one. These four are what make the first months easier, and together they cost less than a single lesson plus a tank of gas.
| What | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Palmer-Hughes Accordion Course, Book 1 | The method book American accordion teachers have used since the 1950s, and the reason so many players share a vocabulary. It teaches the Stradella left hand properly from the first page. Under $10 and worth more than that suggests — for piano accordion only. |
| How To Play Diatonic Button Accordion, Vol. 1 | The button-accordion equivalent, with a CD. The Panther comes with Hohner’s own booklet, which is thin; this is the one that gets you playing tunes rather than exercises. |
| Padded shoulder harness straps | The straps in the box are adequate rather than comfortable, and the whole weight of the instrument goes through them. Wider padded ones are the cheapest comfort upgrade available and the difference shows up around the forty-minute mark. |
| Padded accordion gig bag, 48–72 bass | Sized for a piano accordion, so this is the one for the Hohnica models if you did not get a bag with yours. An accordion left out of a case picks up dust in the reed blocks, and dust is what makes reeds go off pitch. |
Frequently asked questions
Should a beginner start on a piano or a button accordion?
Whichever plays your music. A piano accordion goes into any key and has far more beginner material written for it, which makes it the easier road if you have no particular style in mind. A diatonic button accordion is the instrument for conjunto, norteño, vallenato and Tex-Mex, and if that is what you want to play there is no substitute. Neither is harder than the other in any general sense.
What key of button accordion should I buy?
G/C/F unless someone specific tells you otherwise. It is the standard for Texas conjunto and Colombian vallenato and it is what most lessons and songbooks assume. F/B♭/E♭ is the other common one, particularly in norteño. If you have a teacher or people to play with, match them — the tuning is fixed and you cannot change it later.
How much should I spend on a first accordion?
Around $600 for a button accordion and around $860 for a piano accordion buys a new instrument that will not fight you. Under about $300 the bellows stop being airtight and the reeds stop holding pitch, which is a worse start than no instrument at all. If that is above your budget, a serviced used accordion from a dealer beats anything new at the same money.
Is a 12-bass accordion enough to learn on?
No. A 12-bass left hand has six major chords and no minor chords whatsoever, so a large part of ordinary music is simply unavailable and you cannot learn how major and minor relate. Forty-eight bass is the point at which the left hand is complete, and it is the number to hold out for.
How heavy is a beginner accordion?
A three-row button accordion is about 9 pounds. A 26-key piano accordion is about 12, and a 34-key runs to 17. Weight is the most underrated specification on the page, because it decides how long you practice before you want to stop. Buy the lightest instrument that has the notes you need, not the biggest one you can lift.
Is the accordion hard to learn?
The awkward part is coordination rather than either hand alone. The right hand is a keyboard or a set of buttons, the left is a grid of chords you learn by feel because you cannot see it, and the bellows are a third thing happening continuously underneath both. Simple tunes with a bass-and-chord accompaniment come within a few months. What takes longer is the bellows — every dynamic on the instrument comes from them, and that is the difference between playing the notes and sounding like a musician.
So which one?
If your music is conjunto, norteño or vallenato, buy the Hohner Panther in the key set the people around you play, and start with the G/C/F if there is nobody to match. It is the best instrument on this page by a wide margin.
For anything else, the Hohnica 1304 is the sensible size to learn on and the 1305 is the better instrument if you can carry it. Check every key and every bass button the day either one arrives.