vintage restoration

I recently bought an old accordion cheaply off of eBay and now I am going to restore it. It is an 'Alvari Italia' which is a brand and model that I am having trouble finding reliable information about.
One internet source claims that Alvari was a company popular in the 1930's, but went out of buisness by the 1950's. Another story tells that Alvari instruments are Chinese knock-offs, cheaply made and poor in quality. The Black Diamond Accordion website says that some modern Chinese accordions have bogus Italian sounding names, i.e. anything with an 'i' on the end of it, but that they are still good instruments.
Most worringly, the general internet chatter on forums about Alvari instruments is that they are crap. But I'm still hoping to bring it back to life and get a bit of use out of it, having never played a piano-keyed accordion I'm curious about whether or not I would like to buy a new one. And those badboys don't come cheap! I'd best stick with my little piece of 'junk' for now.

I have already begun cleaning it:

And if all else fails, I can throw it up on a shelf and make it a conversation piece.