Fantasia model was born from an idea of Feeliks Esaias “Esa” Pakarinen (1911 – 1989) and Lauri “Lasse” Armas Pihlajamaan (1916 – 2007). The story tells us that Esa and Lasse were on a tour. The gigs were in the evenings, so there was idle time for the day. Once on their journey they went to the paper shop and bought a stack of black and white paper and scissors. After shopping they went to their quarters to cut papers. They had an idea: “What if the accordion would look like this”.
In reality, Lasse Vuopio, Tampere, is the designer of Fantasia. Lasse Pihlajamaa had been brainstorming patterns with cardboard at Lasse Vuopio. Vuopio practically designed the fantasy model, and he was a trusted planner for Pihlajamaa. Vuopio also wrote sheet music for Pihlajamaa and designed the large golden lyre pattern to the Superlyra accordions made by Pigini. Esa Pakarinen presented the Fantasia model to Oy Harmonikka, where the layout was finalized.
Fantasia is perhaps the most distinctive accordion model in the world, due to its own appearance, when the instrument is compared to the appearance of other accordions made in the 20th century. Despite this, only 25 accordions were made from which two are piano accordions.
There are various interpretations of the Fantasia model history. The most well-known and at the same time incorrect concerning the dispute between Pihlajamaa and Oy Harmonika: Production of the series would have stopped because Lasse Pihlajamaa wanted full rights to sell the product – he had been designing the instrument and therefore he had all rights for it, too. However, in Kouvola, Oy Harmonikka did not agree to give this privilege to Pihlajamaa, so the Pihlajamaa and Pakarinen said that the accordion model should not be manufactured at the Kouvola factory anymore.
In reality, Pakarinen had taken more care of products design issues with the accodion factory, and only the finished product was shown to Pihlajamaa. The end of production after 25 pieces is due to the fact that the product was not economically viable.
Replicas of the Fantasia model began to come to Finland with name Super-Fantasia produced by brand name Ramses. These accordions might have text Raimo Pihlajamaa, who was the nephew of Lasse Pihlajamaa.
For Fantasia models manufactured at the Kouvola factory, the customer was given the hand-forged, gold-plated initials of the accordions grill. If the customer did not want to display their initiletters, “OY Harmonikka Kouvola” was set. The Fantasia model initials are listed into the Freereed.net’s serial number list: here. (in Finnish)
In 1957, Veikko Ahvenainen played a Fantasia model in which the keyboard was not completely black, but with a traditional black and white buttons.
When the accordions were finnished at the factory, the grill were without holes. Only the grill ends had small holes. This gives the distinctive sound color. However, some accordions have been customized afterwards with additional holes. Due to the small production batch, the accordion have never been sold in stores.