THE

MUSIC TRADE

REVIE\N

Some of the best posted piano men have learned of the money
making powers of the

BOSTON.

D O L L ~ S<>~S

'fhey have a reputatton o( 0.01'

Pianos. They are attractively created. Be one of the wise

dealers and investigate them.
JACOB DOLL & SONS, Inc.
98 to 116 SOUTHERN BOULEVARD

KIIWBALL
PIANOS
ORGANS
PLAYERS
LARGEST OUTPUT IN
THE WORLD

w. W.

KIMBALL CO.

The

rip.

NEW YORK

-I

Pianos and Plays,. Pianos

SUPERIOR IN
[VEflY WAY
Old bwbl..h.d Hou... P,oduotlon limited to
Quality. Our Pia... r. Ar. Parf.o'.d to
the limit of Inv.ntlon.

CABLE '" SONS. 550 West 38th St. N.Y.

~~

FIFTY YEARS
tor superiority In th080 qualltle. wbloh
tore mo.at 0086nllll.l 10 a. fl"tMllo-cJ,," Plano.

VOSE & SONS PIANO CO.

BOSTON, MASS.

ORIGINALITY
CABLE & SONS

CHICAGO. ILL.

VaSE PIANOS

PIANOS AND ORGANS

The quality goes IN before the name goes ON

prices 10 Ihe right dealers In the right lerrUory.

is the key-note of the

Bush & Lane proposition. A tone beyond
comparison. A case
design in advance of
all. We stop at nothing
to produce the best.

BUSH & LANE PIANO CO.

HOllAND, MICH.

DescrlpUve catalogues upon ~equesl.

GEO P BENT CO ., Manu facIurers

Gono 'Ollle. .
214-216 Soulh Wabash Ave. CHICAGO

BEHR BROS. &00.

~

'Ti\E:

~ One of the three

()VfFEJT GREAT PIANOS

PlANe.

Th eon
J h Ch ore h Compa.ny

of the World

THE ACME OF PIANO ORAFT.

UNEQUALED IN

TONE,
TOUCH,
DURABILITY.
Write for prices

BDd

territory.

292-8 11th Avenue. New York

CINCINNATI
NEW YORK
CHICAGO
Ow...... of T~. Enr.U PI.DO Co., Do.toa.

HADDORFF
CLARENDON PIANOS
Novel and artistic case
designs,
Splendid lonal qualities.
Possess surprising value
apparenllo all.

Straub Pianos
SII; THEIR OWl PRAISE

STRAUBE PIANO CO.

59 East Adams Street

CHICACO

ILLINOIS

Manufactured by the

HADDORFF PIANO CO.,

Rockford, illinois

M. P. MOLLER,

MANWAOTU."

:Chc.:.c:.~r:nd PIPE

O!

ORGANS

If A G I: R S TOW N. M D.

The AMICA BULLETIN

AUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS' ASSOCIATION
JULY/AUGUST 1996

VOLUME 33, NUMBER 4

TEtE

MUSIC TRADE

RE.VIEW

co.
THE LARIiEST AID OLDEST IVORY canERS AID lEY. MAIERS II. THE WORLD
PRATT, READ &
General

BSTABLISHBD 1806

Offtoe and

Pacborl_.

WM~ BOOTH

ROBERT L. KAPP
7.7 . . . t 1aad ...... t.

O... n

Willow A".nue

IMP'ORTRS AND MANUFACTURllRS OF

MAHOIiA.Y LUMBER and

FinelJ Figured VENEERS

PIANO HAMMERS
T.......". 12 M.I....

...

_""iii

II.,.

JULIUS BRECKWOLDT & CO

.Mlk~c"lr'

& BRO.

Fifty-one Years' Experience

NKW YORK CI rv

Do";p River, Connecticut

432 to 438 Washington St., and

H Desbrosses St., NEW YORK

Dolgeville, N.Y

~sTlt:P:~U~CllAlN
M.nur.cturer. of Sound In.: Board., D.r., Backa, Drlll.:e., MaadoU. . .lId O,a1t.r T""", .te.
Also A"enu ror ~UDOLf' OIDSD Mu.lc Wire In Unlt04 State. and.ead.

A===========-=

SAW

A QOOD PIANO

Can only have

SCHWANDER
NEW YORK

J. HERRBURCER

2213 nlrd Ay....

o.

S.

ACllOI
PARIS
. . rll . .

Iiy..,..

CO.
PIANO. PLATES
Th. Hluh.at Cr.d. 01 Workmanahlp

KELLY

'_.

Foundrle.l SPRINQFIELD, OHIO

WM. Q. KIlROKHOf'F P,.........

STANDARD FELT CO.

NEW YORK

371 PEARL STREET

SU"PLI "OR PI O. OR"AII. FUR_ITUWII

...rylkl., '" lb. Vamllb, 'onlbl d Flnl...I., Roo ..

Saccauor. to the Allred Dolge Felt Co.

Manuf~oturersof FEL TS for all purposes

.........

:===-

lI ... n Powd....

En.mel.

:-:::.~:::

~rafe~~7r:,c

Olle

All Kin" Clu Cu ...... n" .ru......

Specialty: SUN-BLEACHED PlAia FELTS Ind' HAMMERS

nw

TOil WAREIOOMI,
100102 ..... 1Ir"1

FACTORIES

W.at AlNlmb , C.llIornl.

DIIIGAIO OffICE. 404 I , . A.....

110. nlLEITOI, . . . " r

Save Money and Get Better Work

~~~h

LUCAS

BELT SANDER
SPECIAL TO PIANO MANUFACTURERS.

WICKHAM PIANO PLATE CO.

Lt~cOu

dir:;t fS~~\(J-::alm~kc~o~vih~~tc~ofint~~t

quicker time and at a lower cost.

I nMallation (If machine ",ron't obligate
I'Urch35c.
Write us to-day about it.

SPRINGnELD, o.

i~h:

)'OU

to

THE LUCAS MACHINE CO.

PIANO PLATES

JAMESTOWN. N. Y.

EXCLUSIVELY

ISAAC I. COLE & SON

"SUPERIOR"
ITHE
7m;~IORI

FOUNDRY CO.
Plan.o.Plates .
CLBVELAND;.O.

Manulacturtrs
01 All Kinds 0'

~n~~r$

'"

' "' "

MUE A IPlDIAlTT Of

PIANO CASE VENEERS

fAIlTOIT AIID WARERooMI
Fool alb St., E. R.
Ne'\N York

AMICA

THE
V

BULLETIN

AUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS' ASSOCIATION

Published by the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors' Association, a non-profit, tax exempt group devoted to the restoration, distribution
and enjoyment of musical instruments using perforated paper music rolls and perforated music books. AMICA was founded in San Francisco, California in 1963.

ROBIN PRATI PUBLISHER. 515

scan STREET,

SANDUSKY, OH 44870-3736 -- Phone 419-626-1903. Fax 419-624-9454

Associate Editors: Emmett M. Ford and Richard J. Howe

VOLUME 33, Number 4

July/August, 1996

FEATURES

A Review of AMICA ArchivesA Short History of the Piano -

184

186

Construction of the Band Organ The Stop Watch RestaurantWhen Things Work Play It Again -

189

191

Bulletins will be mailed on the Ist week

ofthe even months.

195

Robin Pratt, Publisher

515 Scott Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736
Phone 419-626-1903
Fax 419-624-9454

196

Interesting Invention -

199

Edison's Concrete Piano -

Display and Classified Ads

Articles for Publication
Letters to the Publisher
Chapter News
UPCOMING PUBLICATION
DEADLINES
The ads and articles must be received
by the Publisher on the 1st ofthe
Odd number months:
January
July
March
September
May
November

188

Book Review -

AMICA BULLETIN

199

Tales From the Tuner -

199

Ruth Bingham Smith -

200

MEMBERSHIP SERVICES
New Memberships
Renewals

DEPARTMENTS

Address changes and corrections

Directory information updates

President's Message -

183

183

Publisher's Note Chapter News -

204

Classified Ads -

217

(:overs:
The covers in this issue are miscellaneous. ads taken from

v The Music Trade Review, October 12, 1912, Vol. LV, No. 15..

Additional copies of
Member Directory
Single copies of back issues
($5.00 per issue - based
upon availability)
Mike Barnhart
919 Lantern Glow Trail
Dayton, Ohio 45431
513-254-5580
To ensure timely delivery of your
BUlLETIN, please allow 6-weeks
advance notice of address changes.

AMICA reserves the right to accept, reject, or edit any and all submitted articles and advertising.
Entire conlenl$ 0 1996 AMICA International

181

AMICA INTERNATIONAL
INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS
Linda Bird
3300 Robinson Pike
Grandview, MO 64030-2275
PhonefFax 816-767-8246
E-mail: OGMBird@AOL.Com

PRESIDENT

Maurice Willyard
1988 NW Palmer Lane
Bremerton, WA 98311
360-692-8885

PAST PRESIDENT

Dan C. Brown
N. 4828 Monroe Street
Spokane, WA 99205-5354
509-325-2626

VICE PRESIDENT

Ken Vinen
62 John Street, North
Stratford, Ontario
N5A 6K7, CANADA
519-271-4576

SECRETARY
AMICA Headquarters

TREASURER
Registered agent for legal matters

Roy K. PowIan
Three Crestview Drive
Orinda, CA 94563
510-254-0236

Robin Pratt
515 Scott Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736
419-626-1903

PUBLISHER

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY

William Chapman (Bill)

317 Erie Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
206-323-9191

COMMITTEES TECHNICAL

Harold Malakinian
2345 Forest Trail Dr., Troy, MI 48098

PUBLICATIONS & AMICA ARCHIVES

Robin Pratt
515 Scott St., Sandusky, OH 44870-3736
AUDIO-VISUAL

Harold Malakinian
2345 Forest Trail Dr., Troy, MI 48098

Liz Barnhart
CONVENTION COORDINATOR
919 Lantern Glow Trail, Dayton, OH 45431
HONORARY MEMBERS
Dorothy Bromage
8 Skyline Dr., Billerica, MA 01821-1117
E-mail: LFXU66A@Prodigy.com

CHAPTER OFFICERS
BOSTON AREA
Pres. Robert H. Hunt - (207) 985-2308
Vice Pres: Edward Bordeleau
Sec: Charlie Randazzo &
Barbara McFall
Treas: Alan Jayne
Reporter: Don Brown
Board Rep: Sandy Libman
CHICAGO AREA
Pres: Roger Dayton
Vice Pres: Margaret Bisberg
Sec: Marty Persky
Treas: Joe Pekarek
Reporter: Barbara Schultz
Board Rep: Mike Schwimmer
FOUNDING CHAPTER
Pres: John Motto-Ros - (707) 642-8792
Vice Pres: Lyle Merithew
Sec: Eric Bemhoft
Treas: Dan Stofle
Reporter: John & Nadine Motto-Ros
Board Rep: Bob Wilcox
GATEWAY CHAPTER
Pres: Gary Craig - (314) 771-1244
Vice Pres: Robert W. Taylor
Sec: Mary Wilson
Treas: Dorothy Ruprecht
Historian: Larry Hollenberg
Board Rep: Cynthia Craig
Reporter: Robert W. Taylor

NORTHERN LIGHTS
-/'...
Pres: Donald Jones - (612) 1111??11
I
Vice Pres:

Sec: Jason Beyer

Treas:
Reporters: Paul & Barbara Watkins
Board Rep:
PACIFIC CAN-AM
Pres: Dan Brown - (509) 325-2626
Vice Pres: Bill Chapman
Sec: Peg Kehret
Treas: Carl Kehret
Reporter: Ron Babb
Board Rep: Dan Brown
SIERRA-NEVADA
Pres: Becky Kane - (916) 448-9559
Vice Pres: Vickie Mahr
Secffreas:
Tom & Virginia Hawthorn
Reporter: Lori Deal
Board Rep: Richard Riley
SOWNY (Southern Ontario,
Western New York)
Pres: Randy Sockovie
(905) 734-9439
Vice Pres: Rick Drewniak
SeclMem. Sec:
John & Diane Thompson
Treas: Holly Walter
Photographer: Mike Walter
Reporter: Mike Walter
Board Rep: Wayne Sockovie

HEART OF AMERICA
Pres: John Washburn - (816) 650-9350
Vice Pres: Sandy Schoeppner
Secffreas: Rick McDowell
Reporter: Mary Jo Bopp
Board Rep: Ron Bopp

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Pres: Richard Rigg
Vice Pres: Herb Mercer
Sec./Reporter. Shirley Nix
Treas: Ken Hodge
Board Rep: Frank Nix

LADY LIBERTY
Pres: Bill Maguire - (516) 261-6799
Vice Pres: Keith Bigger
Sec: Richard Karlsson
Treas: Bill Albrecht
Reporter: David Nernoff
Board Rep: Dianne Polan
- (516) 673-0388

TEXAS
Pres: Larry Williams
Vice Pres: Bill Flynt
Treas: Ken Long
Sec: Janet Tonnesen
Reporter: Bryan Cather
Board Rep: Sal Mele

0-

MIDWEST
Pres: Harold Malakinian
Vice Pres: Liz Barnhart
Sec: Judy Barnick
Treas: Alvin Wulfekuhl
Reporter: Christy Counterman
Board Rep: Liz Barnhart

AFFILIATED SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

AUSTRALIAN COLLECTORS
OF MECHANICAL MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS
19 Waipori Street
SI. Ives NSW 2075. Australia

INTERNATIONAL PIANO
ARCHIVES AT MARYLAND
Neil Ratliff. Music Library
Hombake 3210
College Park. Maryland 20742

NETHERLANDS MECHANICAL
ORGAN SOCIETY - KDV
J.L.M. Van Dinteren
Postbus 147
6160 A C Geleen. Netherlands

DUTCH PIANOLA ASSOC.

Nederlandse Pianola Vereniging
Kortedijk 10
287 I CB Schoonhouen.
Netherlands

MUSICAL BOX SOCIETY

INTERNATIONAL
P. O. Box 297
Mariella. OH 45750

NORTHWEST PLAYER PIANO

ASSOCIATION
Everson Whillle
47 Raikes Rd.
Preston PR I 5EQ Lancashire. England
Phone 0772 792 795

PIANOLA INSTITUTE
Clair Cavanagh. Secretary
43 Great Percy St., London WCIX 9RA
England

182

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Division of Musical History
Washington, D.C. 20560

PLAYER PIANO GROUP

(England)
Tony Austin
93 Evelyn Ave.
Ruislip,
Middlesex HA4 8AH. England

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OF
MECHANICAL MUSICAL
INSTRUMENTS
Jurgen Hocker
Heiligenstock 46. D-51465 Bergisch
Gladbach.Gerrnany
Phone 2202-41222

.~

President's Message

L.--

~Iwould

Speaking of conventions, we are still looking for

sights in 1998 and 1999. Please talk it up in your chapter
meetings. It is work but can also be alot of fun. Even if
there isn't a chapter in your area, it is possible to host a
meeting with lots of long distance help.
I asked for volunteers at the convention to serve on
various committees. The response was good but we still
need more people. If you are interested in serving on a
committee or helping in any way, please contact me.
I had better sign off but I want you to have my
Fax number and E-Mail address. My regular address
and phone number are in the directory. My FAX number
is 816-767-8246 and my E-mail address IS
OGM Bird@AOL.Com.
Please feel free to contact me at any time.

like to take this opportunity to say "Hello" to

all of you. It looks like you will have to put up with
my writing these messages for a couple of years so I
will do my best. My husband, Galen and I live in
Grandview, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City. We were
founding members of the Heart of America Chapter and
have been collecting for about 20 years. I do not pretend
to be an expert on any of the machines - I am the
organizer!
We all owe a huge "thank you" to Maury Willyard for
doing such a great job the past two years. He will certainly be a hard act to follow.
For those of you who were in St. Louis, it was great to
see you and meet many of you for the first time. The convention was a great success, as usual, thanks to the many
hardworking members of the Gateway and Heart of
America Chapters. A great time was had by all. Watch
for a complete report in the next issue of the Bulletin.

Linda Bird

'I
H l.

What a summer! Moving my business AGAIN for the

third time in a year is NO FUN I can assure you, and if
any of you have moved a business you can relate. Why
can't we work on violins or something you can throw in
the trunk!
The Midwest Chapter is getting their fall Chapter
,(lleetings in shape and trying our best to get the 1997
-.-I Sandusky AMICA Convention in order too. I might men-~
tion that the Convention is being held at the SAWMILL
CREEK RESORT in Huron, Ohio (2 minutes from

Sandusky) and due to the fact that Sandusky is a major

tourist get-away place in the summer because of CEDAR
POINT, you MUST get your hotel reservations in EARLY
to be guaranteed a room. The dates for the Convention
are Wednesday, June 11 through Sunday, June 15, 1997.
This may seem a little earlier than usual, but the hotel
rates skyrocket after the 15th because of Cedar Point. In
case you haven't heard of Cedar Point, it is THE NUMBER ONE AMUSEMENT PARK IN THE WORLD and
so designated for the last 5 years! It first opened in the
1870's and has the largest collection of roller coasters in
the world. SAWMILL CREEK RESORT, located on
Lake Erie, has two swimming pools, a golf course, as well
as shopping and restaurants. I will give you more details
later, but if you even THINK you are coming, get your
reservations in EARLY!
Well, back to work ...
Robin
183

A Review of AMICA Archives

By R.I. Rosencrans
The actual agreement between AMICA and the University
of Maryland turning over our Association's Archival material
was signed July 12, 1990, by then President Ron Connor and
Secretary Mel Septon. At that time, Mr. Neil Ratliff, now
deceased, was head of the Music Library, at the International
Piano Archives at Maryland (IPAM). Presently, Mr. Donald
Manildi is Curator. Following is a reprint of the article published in the Nov.lDec. issue of the AMICA Bulletin.
"When the last AMICA president ....
GUIDELINES AND PROCEDURES FOR ....
A complete listing of our inventory presently in Baltimore
has been turned over to my successor as Chairperson of the
Archives Committee.
The above is an overview of AMICA's affiliation with
IPAM, with the AMICA Collection being a part of and housed
in the same area of IPAM. We have had very little donated, to
date, to our AMICA Collection. Most of the material of reproducing roll artists has been donated by their family members
directly to IPAM. However, be that as it may, our main concern
is the preservation of such, whether in the AMICA Collection or
otherwise. Recently, you have read of AMICAn Richard Howe
turning over his comprehensive holdings of literature relating to
piano trades industry, with it's impressive documentation of
makers of reproducing instruments. It has been established separately, as a University of Maryland Special Collection in
Music. Further additions are contemplated.
The University of Maryland's interest is primarily the
piano, and more specifically, reproducing pianos. Therefore,
other forms of mechanical or paper roll operated instruments
are not accepted. This short coming was realized from the start
of our affiliation with IPAM, but so far has not been an issue.

. _Obviously AMICA welcomes and encourages members to con- ;

. sider donating to the AMICA Collections. Gifts of rolls is dis:-/j
couraged except for very rare or unusual ones. Therefore, it is
advisable to check with curator, Donald Manildi, first.
Recently, the University of Maryland has experienced
financial cut backs, and thus their Newsletter re the Archives
has been discontinued. A recent letter from Mr. Manildi,
answering my request for updates to include in this article had
the following:
"Visiting students and researchers frequently make use of
the IPAM Collections. A typical example is a 1995 visit by
piano students from the class of Ann Schein at the Peabody
Conservatory, who were treated to a variety of AMPICO rolls
on IPAM's Chickering, including several by Ms. Schein's
teacher Mieczyslaw Muunz. Several university music classes
regularly visit IPAM for lecture-presentations on the sociomusical aspects of the reproducing piano".
Any AMICAns desiring to visit, may do so, by calling
Donald Manildi, Curator, at (301) 405-9224. Hours are weekdays 9-5. If you are interested in some particular aspect or
artist information, it would be advisable to inquire about their
"Finding Aids" to expedite if they have or can locate what you
are after, ahead of time.
In closing, I should like to reiterate under guidelines/procedures for donating to the AMICA Collection, that donors first
contact your AMICA Archives chairperson to ascertain not only
the suitability of such gift, but also, that AMICA has knowledge
of, as well as a record of future additions, to assure continuity
of our records with those of IPAM's.
As past chairperson of the AMICA Archives, I wish my successor all the best for the AMICA Archives.

/"f

AMICA Archives Donated to IPAM

- International Piano Archives at Marylandby Bob Rosencrans
When the late AMICA president Molly Yeckley discussed
the possibility of finding a more suitable place for our
Association's Archival material, the idea of merging with IPAM
seemed worthy of consideration. Following further investigation, the Board of Directors approved the idea, and last summer
at the Cleveland Convention the board approved transfer of the
AMICA Archives to IPAM. It is to be known as the AMICA
Collection at the University of Maryland at College Park in
Baltimore, Maryland.
A brief review of IPAM:
It was founded by Gregor Benko, Albert Petrak and Arthur
Loesser in 1965 in N.Y.C., then known as International Piano
Library. It is a repository for piano rolls (mainly reproducing),
and memorabilia of many recording artists including Ferde
Grofe, Nadia Reisenberg, Abram Chasins, Arthur Loesser and
Olga Samaroff, to name a few, as well as other pianists who did
not make rolls. The collection includes personal papers, pub184

lished and unpublished compositions, photographs, newspaper

reviews, etc. In addition, there are 15,000 LP's and 78 rpm
shellac records. With generous financial help from the Ford
Foundation, all of this was moved from N.Y.C. to College Park,
Baltimore, Maryland in 1978. Mr. Neil Ratliff is the Head of
the Music Library. His assistant, curator Morgan Cundiff, was
responsible for cataloging the record collection and reproducing
rolls, which are in published form.
IPAM, besides housing the above, has displays at various
times, featuring recording artists and related material at College
Park. Additionally, LP's and compact disc recordings have
been produced of several artists, including Nadia Reisenberg,
Abram Chasins and Benno Moiseiwitsch. Such activity is not
limited to roll artists. IPAM has released a new long play 0
record ofWm. Kappeil's performance of Chopin's Mazurkas.
IPAM is always interested in acquiring new donations to
add to and/or upgrade their collection. Presently they have a

Chickering AMPICO B, a Knabe AMPICO A, and a Steck DuoArt - all grands in addition to their Imperial Bosendorfer reproducing grand utilizing the Wayne Stahnke SE system. They
have a non-working Welte vorsetzer, and are most desirous of
-,_ having a working Welte grand reproducing piano.
J
IPAM is open for research purposes, viewing of exhibitions,
attendance at recitals and commemorative events, with certain
restrictions, by advanced reservations. It is hoped that notices
will be published in our Bulletin if publication dates of the letter are timely for the occasion. The International Piano
Archives at Maryland is located in the Music Library, Hornbake
3210, College Park, Maryland 20742. Mr. Ratliff, Head of the
Music Library, can be contacted at (301) 405-9218.
This has been a long introduction of the IPAM-AMICA
affiliation. It is very worthy of our Club's support. In closing, I
wish to thank Bob Taylor (Philadelphia) for his help, as well as
to the other committee members, Emmett Ford and Bill Knorp.
For AMICAns wishing to consider giving to the AMICA
Collection at IPAM, the following suggested guidelines/procedures for donation from IPAM is included. In addition, it is
requested that you first contact the AMICA Archives
Chairperson (presently Bob Rosencrans) to ascertain not only
the suitability of such gift, but also, so that AMICA has knowledge of, as well as a record of future additions, to assure continuity of our records with that of IPAM's. If you wish further
information, please contact either Bob Rosencrans whose
address is 109 Cumberland Place, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
19010, or phone (215) 527-8669; or Neil Ratliff at the College
Park address or telephone (301) 405-9218.

...) - Guidelines and Procedures for Potential Donors

to the AMICA COllection in the International
Piano Archives at Maryland
I. WHAT KINDS OF GIFTS ARE ACCEPTABLE?
The University must always reserve the right to refuse a
gift if it is not needed or inappropriate for the IPAM
Collections. IPAM's principal commitment is to the preservation of recordings of pianists. That includes performances
by pianists on rolls but not simply mechanical reproductions
such as player rolls, 88-note rolls, etc. where no human performance is recorded. IPAM will consider accepting samples of player and 88-note rolls but not large collections.
Organ rolls will not usually be accepted except for samples
or very rare or unusual collections.
1. Reproducing piano rolls will usually be accepted with the
understanding that, after selection of the best copies for
retention in IPAM, duplicates will be disposed of.
AMICA will be informed of any major duplicate roll sales
or trading opportunities.
2. Gifts of reproducing pianos will be accepted only if they
are superior to instruments already owned by IPAM
(allowing a quality "upgrade") or if they represent a type
not previously owned (as of this writing, for example,
IPAM has no functional Welte). Gifts of other instruments such as reginas, organs, and music boxes will not' .
usually be accepted. (It is not possible, for reasons of
space and budget, for IPAM to be a museum per se.)

3. Gifts of papers and other memorabilia of pianists, especially artists of the reproducing piano, are acceptable.
Those may include photographs, letters, scrapbooks, concert programs, publicity materials, etc.
4. Documents related to musical roll technology are acceptable. Such documents related to the piano are the most
desirable, but it is recognized that other roll technology,
such as organ mechanisms, is worthy of preservation for
scholarly uses and belongs appropriately with piano materials because of the technical similarities.
II. HOW SHOULD THE GIFT BE DESIGNATED?
Most material gifts should be donated to The University
of Maryland Libraries with a request that the material be
placed with the AMICA Collection in the International
Piano Archives at Maryland. It will be determined by
Library Staff, before the gift is accepted, whether the material is appropriate for the AMICA Collection. If not, the
donor will be informed of a more suitable part of the
Libraries for that material. The donor may then decide how
to proceed.
Gifts accepted for the AMICA Collection in IPAM may
not, necessarily, be kept physically with other AMICA
material. For example, all reproducer rolls are shelved by
manufacturer's issue number, in a single sequence. This is
the most efficient way to house them and retrieve them
quickly. In order to recognize what materials are part of the
AMICA Collection, IPAM staff will either maintain a separate inventory of the AMICA material (essentially a "finding aid" for the AMICA Collection) or individually label
the AMICA items. Ideally, with funds allowing, both these
methods will be used.
III. TAX DEDUCTIONS
In most cases, materials given to The University of
Maryland which have monetary value are tax deductible.
The IRS is the final arbiter for tax matters so the following
remarks are submitted as guidelines only, not legal advice.
Consult your tax advisor before making decisions.
1. Under no circumstances may The University place a
monetary value on a gift of materials for tax purposes.
The law specifically forbids that.
2. Gifts valued over $5000 require a formal appraisal by a
qualified appraiser and the submission of tax form 8283
signed by the donor, the beneficiary, and the appraiser.
3. Gifts may be appraised before or after the materials have
been presented to The University. Space for appraisers
to work can usually be made available for. limited time
periods. Of course, the appraisal has to be done within a
specific time period of the formal acceptance of the gift
by The University (60 to 90 days).

185

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PIANO

By Catherine A. Smith

-'

--'l

From Spring '96 "Soundboard" by Baldwin Piano Co.

If you have ever played a harpsichord or a clavichord, you

know they feel different from a piano. In a piano, a hammer is
thrown at the, strings when you press a key on the keyboard.
The hammer quickly rebounds so the string can vibrate for as
long as you hold the key down (or even longer if you use the
damper pedal).

But there have been changes to Cristofori's 1709 instrument. A double-escapement was introduced by Sebastien
Erard in 1821; this allowed fast repetition to be made. Using a
cast-iron frame instead of a wooden one was important, as it
permitted the use of heavier strings whose tension demanded
the strength of a metal frame. These thicker strings gave
greater volume and brilliance to the piano. Introduced by
Alphaeus Babcock in 1830, cross stringing allowed the strings
to fan out over a larger section of the soundboard, again giving
more resonance and relieving the crowding of the strings.

The harpsichord is different because the strings are plucked

by a plectrum (originally the pointed end of a feather, now
made of plastic or other synthetic material). Because the harpsichord plucks the string (as opposed to a hammer striking the
string), you are very conscious of the moment the plucking
takes place.

How Much Do You Know About Pedals?

The clavichord strikes the string with a metal tangent.

Unlike the piano's hammer that rebounds right away, the tangent stays in contact with the string. So the clavichord, too,
has its own feel.

On early fortepianos, the mechanism we now know as the

pedal was often manipulated by the knees. For example, you
would raise a lever with your knee in order to lift the damper
from the string.

There was a keyboard instrument called a virginal, which

was a small and simple rectangular form of the harpsichord.
The spinet was another small harpsichord-type instrument.
These are some of the earliest keyboard instruments. Even the
fortepiano, the name given to the earliest piano to distinguish it
from the modern pianoforte, or piano, has its own feel - the
depth of the key fall is shallow and it takes much less weight to
press the key down.

Can you imagine a piano with five pedals? These existed.

Two of the pedals we still have today. The first pedal - the
right pedal - is the damper, which releases the dampers from
the strings, allowing them to vibrate. The shift, or unacorda,
pedal is the one on the left that helps change tonal color and
play more softly. Then there were other pedals we do not use
today: the moderator, bassoon, and harpsichord or Janissary
pedals which created various effects.

The Cristofori Pianoforte

The third pedal on our contemporary pianos is the sostenuto, invented in 1874. The modern piano acquired its essential
characteristics by the 1860s or 1870s.

The piano itself was invented by Bartolommeo Cristofori

in Italy in the year 1709. His was a four-octave instrument
(compared to our seven-and-a-half octave modern instrument),
with hammers striking the strings just as they do on a modern
piano. The instrument was invented to meet the need to control dynamics by touch, which could not be done on the harpsichord.
But the early instrument went through many changes
before it emerged as the piano we know today. The Cristofori
piano was wing-shaped like our grand pianos, with a curved
body and a lid that could be raised. There were also square
pianos in which the strings ran from left to right as on the
clavichord. And by 1800, there were upright pianos whose
strings ran perpendicular to the keyboard.
There were many fascinating experiments that produced
the giraffe piano, in which the wing-shaped body extended
towards the ceiling, or the instrument with six keyboards. A
fortepiano built by Johann Andreas Stein had a pedalboard
similar to organs. These particular experiments did not lead to
the improvement of the piano.
186

The first piano in America was made by John Brent of

Philadelphia in 1774. There have been many piano companies
in our country through the years.
The piano is an instrument found in all parts of the world.
Its large range, which practically encompasses that of a
symphony orchestra, its ability to whisper the pianissimos and
thunder the fortissimos, and its magnificent literature, make it
one of the most beloved, useful and popular of instruments.

Retired from forty years of collegiate teaching, mostly at

Eastern Illinois University, Catherine Smith remains active as
a clinician, adjudicator, performer and writer. A graduate of
Indiana University, she received her doctorate from Florida
State University, with Ernst Von Dohnanyi as her major
professor.

r{..-....

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GRAND PIANO

From Spring '96 "Soundboard" by Baldwin Piano Co.

Dulcimcr. Tllis all<'Cslor of I/,c piallo

origilwlcd ill Imll shol'lly lI{l('f ti,e hirth of
Chris!. II illllstflltes ti,e hilsir prilldplcs of
Ihc pi<lllO, halll/lI('fS strillillg IIIl1ltil"e strillgs
IlIlIcel over a flilt sOlllldhoard. JIISI('wl (If
lIIed'<llI;nil hCIIlllllfl'S, dlllcilller plilyers IIsed
tlVO Ii.~ht stidls elldillg lVil[1 [>rowler IIlwb.
Clavichord. Fint Imilt ilW1II1I1 /400, II,,
dilvidlllrcllVils lII(1sl 1'01'"1"1 dl/H' (1'Illurics
Imer ill the IIIl1sk of Gildl. Whmillley is
prcsscd, iI vatiw/hrilss strip (till/gnl/) b
liftnl to\Vartlilpair of.~lrillgs. The duvidwnl
hilS illfllici 10lle, Imt the \VilY iI's Imill allolVs
for sOllie fOIl/wI (If dY/l(lIl1ics C111I1 evell

vilnato.
Virginal. The typiwl virgillal is a .1111011
IlCIrpsidlOnlwith Ileys ,,' ri)!,ht ilnglrs t(l a
sill.~1e set "I' Sf ,.ill,~s. Whe'! " lIey is p,.es.~e<l, iI
\'el'liwl r(lel (jtldl) IIOldill.~ " Ina I,..,. (lr (lIill
p/('(tllllll , i.,r.~ all<lpllld,.~ lire .\lrillg, "",,<llIrillg iI louder lOllI' thall the duvidlOrd hUI
withoul its tlYllalllir variely.
Spincl. Thollgll origilllllillg in I/aly. the
spillcl \ViiS perfecled by Ellglish huilders in
the Iille s,:venleell (('"tlny, "h(llli II,e lillie ,{
COlli poser Henry I'lIrcc/( The jadl lIIedwnislII plllclis lilt' .s/ring.~ jllst (IS ill Ihe virgilla/,
Iml II,e \Vill.~ .~/lIIpe pITllliis IOllger s/rings,
illacasillg Ihe volllllle l/Ild expillldill,~ ti,e
rallge 10 ilS 1I11/di as five O((ilVI'S.
Harpsichord. Pictured as curly CIS tire
fiftl'elltll cwtllry, thl' /wrpsiclwrel fonn
(\Vhere the Ilcys arc ill lille with strings)
reached ils peall ill the period of Gach l/nd
Handel. III this shl/pe, the pl/Hem for Ihe
1II0del'll grallll, Ihe strillgs are longer, (l/I</the
illstmlllellt sOllllds luwler Ihall the daviclJOrel.
CriSlofori Pianoforle. Ahuul /709,
GarlOlommeo Crislofuri built several
instrumen/s in die IwrpsidlOrd .shape but
witll hammer medwnisms surprisingly lille
the modem piano action. Ilecause players
could control soft alld loud (piano-forte),
which was impossible 011 pludled /Ieyboard
instruments, Cri.stofori named his new
instrument pianoforte I

Piano or Deelhovcn'S Timc. Durillg the

eiJ.:lltcctlth (('ntury, pillllO builders gradually
cxletldcel Ihe {lcY/lOcml. Two important lIew
c/evr!0l'lIIcII/S "'....c tI,C escllpelllLIII acliclII for
fasler repetilic'" '{lIotes (ulJOut 1770 by
Steill in Allgshur.0, /1111 I/le clalllper a/l(l soft
pec/,c/.~ (I 783 by Uroac/wood in lond'III).
Sl'c<'ial pedals, iii/( Ihe olles ill this illuslratiOll, werl' of/ell adc/cd 10 producc ('xotic

IJfats.

Upright Piano. Thc uprighl desigll W<lS

already in usc for harpsichurc/s in the sixtcell
century. III the eighleenth celltury, /11t1I1Y
huilders (especiully in Gerlllany) tried 10
upply this form 10 the pianufurle. /11 1800 the
fir~1 sati.sfa(/ory uprigh/s werc illvcnfl'd.

Square Grand Piano. Thc sC(uure piww

uri.t:illawl when German Imilders (especially
Johwllle.~ Socher in 1712) Iried to <lilaI'I
Cris/ofori's pilllloforte to Ihe 'rudiliclllal
rectangular shape uf Ihe clavichord. The
slfuare piww was popular un/il aimul 1900.

Piano of Lincoln's Time. Durillg thc

lIint('('lIlh (fnlury, Ihe piano continucd to
Iwwmc morc powerful Wid responsivc. The
oUht/lllClillg illlproV('/llellts \VcrI' tlr(' doulJIcrepetitiun action of Seba~tien eraI'd (Paris,
IR21) which allowed very rapid repetition;
und the full cast-iron frame uf AlphafUs
fluhcoch (aos/on 1825), Ihe bllSis for luduy's
extended hey/JOu rd.

Modun Grand Piano. The gralld piuno uf

toduy incorporates till': bestl(ualilics of early
heylJOard instrumellts. Cross stringing - (I
way to achieve greater richneS'S of tunc by
passing more strings over the center of Ihe
soundboard- wus invented hy Alphaeus
Gabcocn in 1830, but was not used in the
Krand piano until the second half of the
nintecnth cenlury. Thc sostenutu, or middle,
pedal was introduced in the latc ninteenth
century, permi/tinK greater musicul colOYing.

187

Book Review from The Economist Review, February 17, 1996

Sent in By Jeffrey Morgan and Larry Givens

Making pianos

Wrong tone
STEINWAY & SONS. By Richard Lieberman.
374 pages; Yale University Press; $35 and 22.50

ow distressing it was for snooty

Europeans to find that the best
pianos on display at the Paris Exposition
in 1867 were made in America. Newworld businessmen had set about perfecting the instrument with a modem technical flair completely absent in Europe and
they marketed it as roguishly as Jefferson
Brick, Lafayette Kettle or any of
Dickens's other unscrupulous Americans.
Not that anyone in America seemed to
mind. The wealthy American public was
only too eager to buy the 19th-century
equivalent of a station wagon and park it
prominently in the parlour window.
Calvin Coolidge, America's 29th president, was later to say that he never imagined "a model New England home without a family Bible on the table and the
piano in the comer".
Among American piano makers, none
stands out like Steinway, the firm which
virtually put the "grand" into "grand
piano". The first of the line, Heinrich
Steinweg, was an instrument-maker from
Brunswick in Germany whose lone bugle
call was supposed to have rallied the
troops when Blucher and Wellington
marched on Napoleon at Waterloo.
Arriving in America aged 53 in 1850,
Heinrich set up the family firm and anglicized his name.

Heinrich was a skilled craftsman, but

the family's technical genius was Henry,
one of his sons who was to die of tuberculosis in 1865 aged only 34. Within a
few years, through a mixture of judicious
borrowing and outright invention, Henry
had sorted out how a piano should be
strung, how to match a resonant soundboard with a metal frame, and how to
make an action that was more responsive
to the pianist's fingers. At the Vienna
exhibition 16 years after Paris, more than
two-thirds of the pianos on show had the
"Steinway system".
188

Stein way did not rely on quality

alone to sell pianos. Competition judges,
performers and journalists were all
bought off. At its most innocent, the
understanding involved nothing more
than an endorsement from the artist in
exchange for the use of Steinways wherever needed.
For Paderewski,
Rubinstein, Horowitz and other star
pianists, the company organized tours,
covering all costs and guaranteeing the
pianists a generous income. In extreme
cases, such as the centennial exposition in
Philadelphia in 1876, the company bribed
the judges to try to ensure that its pianos
eclipsed the competition.
By the end of the 19th century,
Steinway had a hold on the market and
the first years of the 20th brought the
family incredible wealth. Until the
1970s, if you wanted the best piano, you
had a Steinway, just as surely as your
chauffeur drove you about in a RollsRoyce. But after the Depression, even if
the pianos never failed, the Steinways'
business acumen too often did.
This was partly because the
Steinways, always tough and paternalistic, failed to adjust to an age when unions
held more power. This mattered little
while prosperity lasted. But in harder
times, the family managers seemed stuck
in their towers of ivory. Two world wars
did not help, and not only because it distracted loyal citizens from buying pianos.
During the second world war, Steinway,
which tried in desperation to make a living building coffins, found itself suspected of being Nazi in America and Jewish
in Germany.
But the real blame lies with the family's poor strategic judgment and its dangerously complacent overvaluation of the
Steinway tradition. It was a blunder not
to grasp the popular appeal of the humble
upright until too late. Even when

Steinway's "pianinos" were introduced in

1937, they were costly to make and unremarkable.
The family bungled also the restructuring of its factories, concentrating its
American production on an old family
site in the New York borough of Queens
instead of building a modern factory
which would have brought down costs
and allowed for increased capacity. As a
result, when demand for pianos at last
picked up in the 1960s, the company
achieved an unenviable double: not only
was there a backlog of unfilled orders,
but margins were low. The end of
Steinway began in the late 1960s, when
the firm failed to respond to the cheap~...-.
reliable pianos being made by Yamaha,. ,
first in Japan, and later America. In the
absence of radical measures, quality
declined and the firm sought tariff protection from the Nixon administration.
When that failed, Steinway in 1972 sold
out to the CBS television network.
There is something familiar here.
Innovation, dominance, labour unrest,
complacency, uncompetitiveness and
Japanese brilliance were later to cripple
cars, steel and other American industries.
Yet the comparison is not examined in
this book. Indeed, no where does the
author really place the Steinways in
America's corporate history.
Were the story told more compellingly, this might not matter. But Mr.
Lieberman leaves too many loose ends.
Drunkards, unfaithful spouses and family
misfits appear intriguingly only to disappear without trace. "Like the keys on a
piano, this book was played upon by
many people," he writes in a preface.
The result sadly lacks the rich tones of
Steinway.
l'

an

.-"'"

Construction of the Band Organ

By Leonard Grymonprez
Editor's note:
This is another selection from the large hand-written group of articles sent in years ago
by Mr. Grymonprez. Not only are the articles informative and enjoyable to read, but the
English sentence construction is a delight. Enjoy. R.P.
A lot of the readers for sure like to learn more concerning
the construction of the band organ as only a few have had an
opportunity to witness the process of the construction and
restoration of a band organ from beginning to end. I would like
to explain the details, and I hope this will give a better idea of
all components which are concerned for a final recital to the
public. We also are aware what costs might be occurred on a
hard to handle restoration and which are part of the subject.
There are existing constructions which will have no part of
what will be described; however, the basic meaning is to
describe those constructions which are most common and one
has to realize what sort of an assembly a band organ really is.
A band organ is a mechanical pneumatic musical instrument in which tones are produced through the pipe ranks it has,
activated via pressure - air. It's music is also produced via the
punched zig-zag folding cardboard music books arranged by a
certain preferred noteur, and these music books travel through
the key frame when one turns the crank or cast iron organ
wheel. When we infiltrate with some imagination further into
it's systems, we will discover the band organ has some similarities with the human body.
The necessary air supply is provided through the bellows
(the lungs), the music books which are passing through the key
frame (the brains), general distribution through main air chest
(the veins), secondary air chests (the nerves), and the pipe ranks
(the voice). Most components of a medium sized band organ
are mounted into the main chassis (the body).
A band organ main chassis is constructed after the necessary measuring of it. Band organs have versatile sized constructions, although advanced connoisseurs easily could estimate a particular model exists of Gavioli, Limonaire or Mortier
heritage. Other estimates are pipes, scroll-work, etcetera. A
dance organ usually has a longer and larger main chassis with
additional side-niches (two or four of these), which are mounted left and right of the chassis.
It is remarkable not much difference exists or did exist
among the constructions of main chassis which left the firms of
the band organ manufacturers, and there are nearly the same or
identical functions for all. The front side of the main chassis is
open and the carved and painted front with scroll work is fastened on it. The back side usually consists of three rectangull1!',
panels. The upper panel is fastened with screws, the middle
one is an up and down sliding panel for an easy reach to the key
frame and handle the music books, and bottom panel is fixed by
means of wooden shut off clamps. When one removes the bot-

tom panel which takes a few seconds, one has an easy access to
all of the back components.
Mainly the upper main chassis is mounted on a lower section and fastened to it with rather large screws. One used to
call the lower section the organ chair, and inside of it the six,
eight or twelve organ basses are mounted. The amount of these
basically depends on the musical layout of a particular band
organ. At the lowest level of the organ chair, two boards are
fastened with screws and they usually consist of a toughish sort
of wood. They are called the organ sleds and allow an easy
movement of the entire main chassis when it is transported via
iron tubes. At each side of the chassis are a pair of cast iron
handles of rather heavy construction allowing to take up the
chassis at one or the other side.
It is common for each side to have two panels, a small
hinged one and a larger sliding one which when moved out give
easy access to pipe ranks and other components. Below there is
a small rectangular sliding panel which allows access to the
feeders of the bellows and the stay rods, to be able to grease
these. Unfortunately, most "servicemen" over-grease them...

Main chassis usually are constructed from selected pine

wood and chassis, plus all panels are set into veneer which
ranges from oak to mahogany care. .. Occasionally I have seen
chassis constructed from solid oak. Heavy boys to take up!
Bass drum, snare drum and cymbal are usually mounted on
the side consoles which are fastened with screws or special
shaped bolts on the sides of the chassis. Snare drum and components are usually mounted at the right hand console and bass
drum and cymbal at the left console. However, this particular
setup might differ from one make to the other.
At the front side of the chassis of the band organ, it is a
common thing to fix the facade by means of hinges or special
bolts.
Amount, installation and arrangement of ~ipe ranks and
musical layouts differ so much from model to model and make
to make, it certainly would fill a book to cover this particular
subject alone. Meanwhile, Arthur Reblitz from Colorado
Springs and Q. David Bowers from California did the job!

Bellows and Air Supply

As we have read above about the construction of the main

chassis, we now will read about bellows and air supply and how
this essential part of a band organ is put into the chassis.
189

Any organ friends "know that when turning the driving

wheel, it not only helps to get the folding cardboard music
books through the key frame but evenso to get both the feeders
into motion, which in tum are responsible for the necessary air
supply for the organ.

Each feeder has two compartments and then four compartments supply the air into the reservoir. Strong springs are
mounted on top of the reservoir to keep the air inside the reser.voir at a constant pressure, 6 to 8. The reservoir is provided
with a spade-shaped safety valve to prevent over-inflation.

Inside the organ chassis, at the right or left side, the crankshaft is mounted into two adjustable beech blocks, which in
turn are fastened onto the chassis with heavy screws. The
length of the crankshaft is about half that of the side of the
chassis. Two other adjustable beech blocks are fastened outside
at the rear of the chassis to give extra support to the removable
shaft (which turns into crankshaft), on which the organ driving
wheel is fastened with a bolt. Driving wheels have a weight of
about seventy pounds which is necessary to give the grinder an
opportunity to maintain an easier and synchronic tempo.

At the head of each feeder board, a steel shaft or so-called

stay rod has been inserted for more rigidity. I have seen crankshafts provided with ball bearings but more often crankshafts
are running in beech blocks. Most band organs have a two
feeder-reservoir system although some large Charles Manganari
organs had a three and even four feeder system. Heavy boys to
grind! After World War II more and more organs have been
converted to electric blower systems, eliminating ALL of the
above described ...

If the driving wheel should be a light-weight one, the

grinder could not operate the tempo in a desired sense. If a driving wheel would be too small in diameter, the motion would
run stiff and would be heavier for the grinder to tum. Between
the crankshaft-pulley and the key frame-pulley, of which both
pulleys are usually double V-shaped ones, two leather belts
maintain the tracking of the folding cardboard music books
through the key frame unit. Discussing the other function of
turning the driving wheel which meanwhile provides the air
supply, we have to cover the feeders and reservoir subject.

The music books are tracked through the key frame by a

separate 1/16 H.P. electric motor plus reduction gear box, and
connection via key frame/gear box by a quality bicycle chain.
The system is very reliable and stands for fine duty.
I intended to cover the pipe ranks, flute and reed family, the
windchests and functions of them all in next articles, but I'm
not that good in drawing. I will make you aware of a very fine
book entitled: "The Fairground Organ" written and compiled by
an old English friend of mine, Mr. Eric V. Cockayne. This book
is a must for any lover of the band organ!

A bellows unit usually takes about 3/4 the length inside the
main chassis and 3/4 the width inside of it, but these are general
measurements as there are organs with longer and wider bellows units and have three feeders instead of two.

-~

It's a basic fact, wider feeders provide more air supply

against smaller ones. Craftsmen often talked about a "meager
bellows" pointing out a particular organ had a less supplied air
source.
A bellows unit usually consists of two feeders, an air reservoir, six or eight heavy springs on top of it, and a spade shaped
safety valve. The unit is mounted into the bottom of the main
chassis. The end of the feeders is called the tail, the top of it the
heads. The feeders have an up and down reciprocating motion
and both are double acting. Feeders and reservoir are usually
skillfully assembled and have to be very tight to assure a perfect air pressure without the slightest loss.
Both feeders have rectangular grooves at the outside.
These are the suction openings through which the air passes to
fill the reservoir. Inside these grooves, above and below, six or
eight holes are drilled. All of these holes are shut off and
opened through one-way flap valves of leather. If the feeder
rises upwards, the flap valve will close due to the counter air
pressure, while the bottom flap valve opens and permits an air
passage into the reservoir. If the feeder moves down, the top
flap valve opens to permit an air passage into the reservoir
while the bottom flap valve is closed. And so the reciprocating
motion goes on...
190

Editor's note:
In the following article about Charles Fuller
Stoddard, the second to the last paragraph, Mr.
Stoddard is shown as "trying to forget" the Ampico
because he "is dubious whether it will ever make a
come back." Had Mr. Stoddard lived a few more
years, he would have witnessed the renaissance of the
Ampico and the passion for it by AMICA collectors!
Thanks you, Mr. Stoddard. R.P.

~()

Stop-Watch
, ~ Restaurant
By Robert Lewis Taylor
From The Saturday Evening Post,
June la, 1944
Sent in by Richard Howe

With automatic frying pans

and rolling pins, ticker tape to
clock waitresses, and other wonderful gadgets, Charles Fuller
Stoddard has created a cafe for the
epicures of Oz.

TODDARD'S RESTAURANT,
atop a sixteen-story building on
West 119th Street, in New York,
would be a favorite cafe in the Land of
Oz. While its profusion of gadgets and
devices might afflict a nervous diner with
digestive woe, if he knew what was
going on, a great host of discerning eaters
-have pronounced Charles Fuller
Stoddard's experiment in exactitude a
thumping success.
The restaurant is the result of
Stoddard's fastidious regard for fried
chicken. For many years he wandered
unhappily in and out of the nation's leading restaurants, observing the grievous
discrepancies in the preparation of this
dish. Generally he took along a thermometer, which he would carry into the
kitchen at strategic moments and poke
into the skillet. Prolonged research along
this line led to his gloomy discovery that
the heat in these skillets varied as much
as 175 degrees, and cooking time from
twelve to thirty minutes. Stoddard concluded that the chefs were cooking by
ear, and that the results were ragged.
A dapper, nervous, quick-eyed little
man with a shiny, bald cranium, he had
always had a restless dissatisfaction with
things that were out of joint, and he
resolved to put fried chicken on a uniform basis. Already well-off as a result
of the perfecting in.his early manhood of
the pneumatic mailing tube and the
invention of the Ampico player piano, he
had no trouble getting his restaurant into
operation. That was in 1930. Today, the
place is the delight of mechanically

How thick should piecrust be? As thick as a nickel, says the meticulous
Mr. Stoddard, who here checks a sample strip of dough on a precision guage.
minded gourmets. Two of its most successful devices are an automatic frying
pan, invented by Stoddard, which measures both the temperature and the weight
of the chicken, and a machine for timing
the table service. The proprietor formerly used a stop watch for the latter operation, but he found that he could clock
only one waitress at a time. He can now
study the service at eight tables simultaneously. The mechanism is in a small
metal box. A sheet of paper marked off
in eight divisions slowly emerges from
the box, rather in the manner of ticker
tape, and after the proper code marks are
inscribed on it, shows what's under way.
By a characteristic mental operation,
Stoddard has computed with the machine
that a waitress walking two steps at an
ordinary gait costs him one-fiftieth of a
cent. He finds this calculation impressive. Speaking editorially, as is his habit,
he says, "We are twenty years ahead of
our time."

Dining by the Clock

N THE serving stands are electric
heaters to keep coffee at a constant
temperature. Stoddard is very particular
about coffee himSelf, and says that his
guests should be too. .
When a guest enters the restaurant, a
hostess presses a button which informs

the kitchen of the new arrival. Stoddard

has found that, on an average, a lone
diner or a pair tete-a-tete will finish
a meal in thirty minutes, with perfect
service. Four people at a table take twice
as long because they talk twice as much.
Up to now, the proprietor has not invented a device to regulate talking. Instead,
he just asks people to leave when they
stay too long.
"At first they don't like it," he says,
"but we've got most of our guests trained
now." One Thanksgiving Day, three
women finished their dinner and continued to talk with great doggedness. "I
went over and requested the table,"
Stoddard says with bitterness. "One of
them, turning to me, exclaimed, 'We had
a perfect dinner, and now you've spoiled
everything.' I said to her, 'Madam, you
arrived fifteen minutes late, after making
a reservation, and now you're spoiling
Thanksgiving dinner for a lot of other
people.' They got up and left, but they
didn't like it. As a matter of fact, they
weren't exactly the type of people we
like to have."
Stoddard's restaurant is as unconfused as an electric roaster. Everything
works more or less automatically and the
guests automatically stay happy. There
are few mix-ups with orders. People who
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK MANNING

191

A ticker-tape chart keeps the

chef posted on how many
people are in the dining room.

express a desire for Brussels sprouts seldom wind up with broccoli, and a steak
ordered medium rare arrives in precisely
that condition. Practically everything is
numbered at Stoddard's. Each guest is
given a number, each table has a number,
and each section of tables has a number.
On every dish that comes up from the
kitchen is an identifying slip that sends it
to its proper section, table and guest. As
an extension of this idea, all the food
except the main course is numbered or
lettered on the order. Thus, when a check
is whisked by tube to the kitchen bearing
some such legend as "s - Lamb - 1-2-34," Guest 4 at Table 3 may soon be
assured of eating cream-of-split-pea
soup, roast lamb with mint jelly, shoestring potatoes, string beans and creamed
turnips. All this, of course, saves the
waitress considerable work. In addition,
she never has to shuttle back and for to
the kitchen to see how things are coming
on. An electric-blinker system, especially designed by the proprietor, keeps her
posted on the progress of everything for
her section. Furthermore, she has to
brush the tables only once during a meal
period. This was made possible by
Stoddard, who arranged for tablecloths
made of thick lace with large gaps
through which the crumbs fall to the
table. "We just crumb up at the end of a
session," he says happily.
Perhaps the pinnacle of Stoddard's
culinary mechanics is found in his
kitchen, a place of almost tomb-like
quiet. The only racket in this chamber of
culinary inventions is made occasionally
by the dishwasher. Up to now, the proprietor has found no device to eliminate
192

the noise of two dishes banging together.

This nuisance is offset, however, by
Stoddard's wonderful ranges. To put his
cooking on an exact plane, he spent many
hours working out ranges that are practically foolproof. First of all, he invented a
regulator to reduce variations in the gas
that is accurate to eleven ten-millionths
of an inch, which he describes as being
"inside the limit of permissible error."
Then, to keep his chefs from having to
bang oven doors and generally poke
around in the food, an elaborate system
of bells rings out bulletins on everything
that is cooking. What they actually do is
"speak gently," says Stoddard, who, disliking noise, had toned them down.
There is his basket container for deep-fat
frying, which works like an electric toaster. At a predetermined instant, the basket
pops up from the vat, tips at an angle and
drains the grease off the viands. His
mixing machine, which insures that cake
batter will always have exact consistency,
has been admired by chefs both here and
abroad. All Stoddard's baking is automatic, and he has even whipped up a
rolling pin that eliminates guesswork
from the rolling operation. The pin has
disks on each end which are slightly larger than the pin itself; all his pie crusts are
then rolled out to about the thickness of a
nickel, which is better than can be done
by hand. "They vary," says Stoddard
with pardonable pride, "roughly two or
three thousandths of an inch." This progressive device, one of his favorites, is
the only one of the kitchen inventions
that he has cared to sell. It is now in use
by many fine restaurants, including the
Schrafft and Stouffer. Research proved
to him that in the case of chicken and
steak, this unfortunate loss amounted to
27 percent. By experiments as careful as
those which produced anti-tetanus serum,
Stoddard brought this shrinkage down to
11 percent. He is understandably hesitant
to disclose the details of his triumph, but
it has to do with oven temperatures, pressures, humidity, and so on.
None of his guests, says the proprietor, ever feels slighted, because every
portion of food served in the place is
weighed and measured. Thus, chicken
orders are always the same weight seven eighths of a pound for each half
chicken. If a diner orders scrod, he will
get a helping exactly nine inches long.
An order of chopped sirloin means exactly four ounces - five ounces in prerationing days - and one of roast beef
hash also means four ounces. The pro-

prietor's margin of allowable error with

these portions is one quarter of an ounce.
Stoddard was born in Chicago in
1876, the son of a prosperous furniture
dealer who was born in England. Th~
boy exhibited an unusual knack for)
analysis and exploratory thinking very
early. "I always felt that I was somewhat
of a thinker," he admits today, "and I was
always worrying about how to improve
my mind."
He hooked on to a telegraph line that
ran by the home of a school chum in
Woodlawn, and the two carried on a great
deal of free conversation for several
years. When Stoddard was fourteen, he
plunged spiritedly into neighborhood
kite-flying warfare in which the boys
attempted to cut down one another's kites
with knives attached to their own.
Stoddard equipped his kite with several
knives and a device for steering it, his
first invention. He cut down all the other
kites in the air and was widely imitated,
but the police put a stop to the whole kite
blitz.
During the Chicago World's Fair, he
had been employed as an engine cleaner
in the Libbey glassworks and had used
his wages to build a laboratory in his
basement, where he also took care of th~
furnace. At that time Chicago was burn- ,
ing natural gas in most furnaces.
Keeping the gas turned up and down was
such a chore that the boy consulted his
workbench and turned out a handy little
device to regulate the gas automatically.
Departing from the literary plots of the
period, a heating company became interested in the thermostat and, neglecting to
skin him out of it, actually advanced the
boy $10,000 worth of the company's
stock. However, before the stock could
pay any dividends, natural gas was taken
out of Chicago and the company blew up.
Although Stoddard's dreams of being
able to retire before he had graduated
from high school faded, he still considers
his labor on the thermostat well spent.

The Mail Must Go Through

toddard studied drafting at the
Armour Institute of Technology and
worked for three years improving cotton
gins for a company in Boston. He quit
this job to head for England by way of a,
cattle boat. His motive was twofold - to
look for a new employer and to see
Herbert Spencer, the Victorian philosopher, whose works he had been reading.

Because he found employment conditions a little taut in London, his money

dwindled to $5.50 and he was reduced to
eating horse com. The youth failed to get
a job in England, but he did manage to
, get into the Athenaeum Club, where
Spencer had formerly hung out, and he
was shown a billiard table on which the
philosopher had often played. Gazing in
awe at this curiosity, Stoddard remembered that it was Spencer who once had
said, "Too good a game of billiards is a
sign of a misspent youth," and he knew
that his voyage to England, though a
financial failure, was a distinct cultural
success. After a few more weeks of
tramping the streets, he gave up and
worked his way back to Boston.
Shortly after his return to Boston, the
American Pneumatic Service Company,
which was installing mail tubes in Boston,
New York, Chicago and St. Louis, offered
him a job as staff inventor at eighteen dollars a week. Stoddard plunged into this
new work with great zeal, feeling that he
was part of a pioneer venture similar to
the early experiments with the iron horse.
Frequently the mail in the tubes became
clogged up and came to rest at some indeterminate spot in the networks.
Stoddard's job was to locate the jams
- when they occurred, and figure out means
of stopping them. When he took the job,
the method of spotting pile-ups, borrowed
from the French, was to fire a blank cartridge into one end and see how long it
took the sound to come back. Stoddard
quickly invented a tuning-fork-chronograph arrangement and bet ten dollars he
could locate stuck mail within an inch.
He won the bet, and the company laid its
pistol down. After this, Stoddard turned
out a number of improvements of the sys-

tem, most of which are still in use today.

During his five years with the company,
he had some exciting times. Once a projectile, containing bonds being rushed
across town to save a failing bank, hung
up in a frozen tube. Any kind of delay
would have resulted in a bank run.
Stoddard rose to the emergency by filling
a second projectile with alcohol and
shooting it into the tube. It struck the
frozen bonds, broke, melted the ice, and
the bonds went sailing on to the rescue.
One evening while on a business trip
to Chicago, Stoddard dropped into a
rathskeller with some friends and was
much irritated by the jangling of a player
piano. In this period - circa 1910 - the
player piano had a perforated roll and a
pneumatic keyboard, and any interpretive
effects were provided by the person doing
the pumping - that is, by means of a loud
or soft lever. Stoddard, a music lover
since boyhood, was outraged by the noises it disgorged. He resolved to break off
his relations with the mail tubes and concentrate on music. Although his job was
paying him $8000 a year, he quit and disappeared into his basement to woo the
mechanical muse. Within eighteen
months he had developed improvements
in tone and mechanics that would exploit
the artist's individual style and expression. The manufacturers were unimpressed. Steinway sent two men to his
basement, but they took a sour view of the
whole business. The other large piano
makers behaved similarly. Then the
American Piano Company, just forming,
became interested in Stoddard's creation
and decided to buy it. The inventor was
hired as head researcher, with a substantial royalty from each instrument sold.

Restauranteur Stoddard presiding over the preprandial session at which his

scientifically trained wiatresses are briefed on the menus for the day.

Golden Notes
The Ampico, as the new player piano
was called, was sensational. Stoddard's
income jumped to $100,000 a year. He
bought a personally designed RollsRoyce and cultivated his taste in wines
and food. Also, he took to running
around with great musicians and was
entertained in their houses. He engaged
them to record their art for posterity, and
they, in turn, were warmly disposed
toward the man who had made the voice
of Aeolus sigh from an electric bellows.
On one occasion, Stoddard demonstrated
his invention by having it on a stage
behind a screen with Leopold Godowsky,
the piano virtuoso. The audience was
unable to tell when Godowsky stopped
playing and the Ampico took over.
Through the next few years Stoddard
continued to pump his way steadily
toward wealth and glory and was becoming a notable bon vivant when he met
Miss Ethel Corbett, a Canadian, and proposed to her during the course of their
first evening together. After their marriage six month later, the pair toured
extensively in Stoddard's Rolls-Royce.
Not long after that, Stoddard entered
upon what must be described as his
Chinese period. One day, he dropped
into an auction and saw a Chinese rug,
which the inventor said immediately
stimulated his thinking. He bought it and
started delving further into Chinese culture. The upshot of all this was that his
Riverside Drive apartment has finally
emerged as one of the great triumphs in
Oriental decor.

China on the Hudson

Its most arresting fixture is a huge
golden rug which cost Stoddard $4000. It
extends through the two large living
rooms and contains, according to figures
carefully computed by the owner,
4,000,000 knots. The walls and ceilings
of these rooms are covered by golden teabox paper, which Stoddard himself cut
into six-by-nine-inch rectangles and plastered on, to gain an unusual effect. He
estimates that he used 3000 rectangles in
all. A great many Chinese paintings are
hung over the gilded paper, and he used
Chinese carvings for cornices over the
windows and archways. One of the most
impressive pieces of furniture in the living rooms is a $1000 Ming table.
Resting on the table is one of his greatest
treasures - a 500-year-old lamp worth
$2500. This piece, Stoddard admits to
his guests, is old, but compared to his
marble deity, Kuan Yin, it has not yet
193

generally manifests his irritation by

drumming on whatever is handy with his
fingers.
Stoddard is a familiar figure at
restaurant conventions. Most chefs, at
the mention of Stoddard's name, will
only shake their heads gloomily, but others will utter agonized cries and brandish
meat cleavers. Stoddard, neverthless,
goes his precise way with cOinmendable
tranquillity, impervious to the criticism of
mortals who are subject to flaws. He is
likely to offer mechanical advice to anybody at any time. Once while he was
touring a factory in Syracuse where wood
was being "antiqued" by banging and
bumping, Stoddard easily contrived a
superior method on the spot.
With such thought - saving devices as this automatic range, Stoddard has reduced
the cher's fine art to a routine of pushing buttons and listening for bells.
reached adolescence. The Kuan Yin is
made up his mind; he took over the
small, ailing restaurant on the roof of
pushing 2000 years and is still in a
remarkable state of repair.
Butler Hall, on West 1I9th Street, and
hired
a manager. For some time he tried
Three of the eight rooms are crowded
to
work
out precision cooking by fairly
with valuable Chinese art and furniture orthodox
methods, but eventually he realred lacquer chairs, green porcelains and
ized that the situation called for a pioneer
bronzes, jeweled caskets and figurines,
move, so he fired his manager and
enameled tables, pewter flagons, embroiemployed
a machinist.
dered arm rests, ancient vases. Sung jar-

dinieres, glazed elephants, and Ko-Su wall

panels, and their stimulating effect on the
restaurant and pneumatic-tube genius has
proved them well worth while. Furnishing
just one of the big rooms cost him
$40,000. The dining room is also gold, of
a soft shade, and has seat cushions of velvet with Chinese characters on them that
read "happy birthday" a hundred different
ways. When the inventor comes into the
soothing Oriental atmosphere of his abode
after a rough day with the automatic frying
pans, he quickly relaxes.
A great many people have wondered
how a man like Stoddard, accustomed to
the world of music and Chinese art, could
suddenly make an excursion into the
restaurant business. There were two main
reasons for it. By 1930, when his venture
with food began, pianos had suffered a
decided slump. The public was busy listening to the radio. Stoddard was getting
sick of the restaurants where he and his
wife occasionally ate. One night they
would drop into a hotel dining room and
things would be fine, and two nights later
they would drop in and things would be
only so-so. It was the same in other
places.
"There was no precision to it,"
Stoddard explains. "You were at the
mercy of the chefs, and chefs make mistakes." The combination of these factors
194

From then on, things began to hum.

Stoddard and the machinist, being largely
en rapport, had a wonderful time tinkering and inventing and trying out new
gadgets. It was not long before the
Columbia University and church crowds
got wind of the unvarying quality of
Stoddard's cuisine, and they drifted over
from their regular haunts for a tryout.
They have never left. Once you become
a Stoddard diner, according to the proprietor, you remain a Stoddard diner; no
other restaurant has been able to generate
in its customers the same quiet assurance
that excellence in food is automatic. To
make his flock more at home and to
attend to numerous details, that require
the touch of a master, Stoddard is on
hand during all meals. Darting nervously
here and there, placing cut flowers on the
tables, pressing the foot pedals that mysteriously operate his coffee makers, the
proprietor carefully regulates the tempo
of his establishment. "Tempo" is one of
his favorite words. Should he notice that
the tempo in any section of the place has
become disjointed, through excessive
talking of customers, sluggishness of a
waitress or a breakdown in the machines,
he flies into action and sets things right.

Come Out of the Kitchen

By and large, Stoddard is a nervous
man. Slow people irritate him, and he

During the last war, Stoddard walked

into the Sperry Company offices with
some plans under his arm, and the
amazed Sperry officials hauled out several identical plans, that were marked
secret, and amazed him.

Food for the Soul

The Stoddards are not so socially
active as they were when they had the
Rolls-Royce and hobnobbed with the virtuosi. They have no children and stay at
home a good deal, although Stoddard has
made several attempts to take up golf in a
serious way. He still plays occasionally.
Some time ago he worked out a chronograph to measure the characteristics of a
golf swing, but nothing much came of it.
He calculated that the head of Walter
Hagen's golf club takes eleven ten-thousandths of a second to travel one tenth of
a foot, and that his own takes fourteen
ten-thousandths to go the same distance.
In other words, he located the source of
his inferiority to Hagen, and was surprised to find that there was nothing he
could do about it.
The Ampico in the Chinese drawing
room is tightly closed. It has been closed
for years, and Stoddard is dubious
whether it will ever make a comeback.
He is trying to forget about it.
"My researches in cook~ry will outlive my other contributions," he often
says. Oddly enough, his efforts in behalf
of the public stomach are now largely
disinterested. He and Mrs. Stoddard have
become indifferent eaters; they often go
to bed without eating an evening meal.
Stoddard says with a smile that a man ca~
think better if he eats less. "After all," he
says, "Mohammed fasted for days in the
desert and came back with the Koran."

From Metropolitan, JanuarylFebruary 1995, Vol. 4 No. 2, Ital~

Sent in by Emmit Ford

Giovanni Sgambati composing at his piano.

When Things Work

Antonio Latanza, Director of the National Museum of
Musical Instruments, tells the tale of an acquisition of
a piece of musical history.

By Luciano Chianese
midst the clamour of complaints about
the
incrl1cicncy
of thc
Italian
burcaucracy, a small, clcar voice in its
favour
occasionally
brcaks
the
monOlony of the general gloom. In his
antiquc-filled study at thc National
Muscum of Musical Instruments, Antonio
Latanza gleefully rccoun(s of how future
visitors to the Museum will be able to see
what a composer's studio would have looked
like in the 19th century. Thanks 10 the
Minister for Culture r-isichella's, limitation of
the sale of the contents of Giovanni
Sgambati's !lat in Piazza di Spagna, lhe
llal ian Slate was able to buy the lot, lock,
stock and barrel, for the nwre-Ihanreasonable price of 350 million lirc.
Sgambati was one of those very rare llalian
19th century composers to completely
distance himself from llaly's operatic
tradition. As a result, he is not very well
known today and neither did he enjoy
considerable fame in his lifetime. Pianist,
conductor and composer, Sgambali was
satisfied with the admiralion of the Wagners,
Liszts and Griegs of the time. When Liszt
came to Rome in an effort to wed Cardinal
Hohenlohe's cousin, Princess Carolina
Wittgenstein, he also took up giving
Sgambati conducting lessons (he hardly
needed composing lessons, having graduated
from lhe ConseIVatory of Santa Cecilia at the
age of thirteen). When Wagner came to
Rome and heard Sgambati's work, he was so
enthralled thaI he immediately wrote to his
publisher, Schott. demanding that he be

Sgambati's publisher too. Grieg, Saint-Sacns,

l3usoni and Massenel all passed through
Sgambati's one-room nat on Piazza di
Spagna, so it is easy (0 (ell from the company
he kept that he was a follower of Teutonic,
rather than llalian, Romanticism.
After Sgambati's death in J 914, his heirs
decided (0 preserve his studio just as it was
and
continued
paying
the
rent
to
Assicurazioni Genera/i. When Assicurazioni
Generali re-c1aimed the nat, Mrs Paola Qddi

(the daughter of Sgambati's daughter-in-law)

began a desperate search for a way to keep the
collection of furniture and memorabilia intact.
Finding no way of persuading Assicurazioni
Generali to set up a museum in tile original
studio, Mrs Oddi was forced to put the whole
collection up for auction. Christie's set the
auction date for December 12th 1994 and, had
it not been for the prompt inteIVention of the
Cullure Minister, FisicheJla, the collection
would have been dispersed throughout the
world. Instead, Fisichella decreed that the
collection should be sold as a single lot. The
2,000 lellers and 1,000 signed photographs
(apart from the lellers and notes from
prominent artistic figures there is also a
portrait photograph of Queen Margherita,
with a personal dedication to Sgambati and
his family) were already due to go to the
Casanatense Library, while the furniture,
objects and pictures all went to the Museum.
Dott. Latanza had heard about this lillie
time-capsule from his piano tutor, Ceccarelli,
but the first time he went there was four years
ago when Giuseppina Pazielli (Sgambati's
daughter-in-law) offered Sgambati's piano
for sale to the Museum.
"I was amazed at what I saw there and
asked for a complete inventory of the
contents of the apartment. Sgambati's room is
of huge importance because it is without a
doubt the only surviving studio of a 19th
century composer still intact."
Tile second noor of the Musical
Instrumenls Museum will be dedicated to
19th century musical instruments, with a
whole
room
arranged
to
reproduce
Sgambati's studio in the minutest delail. Doll.
Latanza has photographs of the room from
every possible angle, with close-ups of all tile
cabinets and tables to help him arrange the
objects just as they were in Piazza di Spagna.
So far, the contents of the studio have only
had a good dose of poisonous gas in the
Museum's fumigating room. The 'gas
chamber', for eliminating possible parasites,
is the only usable room in a large, bombedoul building which stands next to the
Museum and which, one day, will be restored
and become a second wing of the Museum.
Dolt. L1tanza is philosophical about it: "That
probably won'l happen in my lifetime, but
then you never know: scepticism can always
turn to optimism", he hopes to have lhe
second floor, with the Sgambati room,
opened within the next six months.

A view of the Piazza di Spagna studio.

19

Press & Sun-Bulletin Sunday, April 14, 1996

Sent in by Harvey Roehl

Kurt Krouse, service manager with Larkin Musical

Instrument Co., 19 Chenango St., Binghamton, works on
regulating the key release from the Chickering baby grand

piano behind him. Krouse is in the process of rebuilding

and repairing the 1930s-era piano for resale.

Play it again?
That old piano may have some life yet
By Lee Shepherd, Staff Writer

~
:;,

i
"

~
~

~
~
Chris Argento, a piano technician with
Larkin Musical Instrument Co., 19
Chenango St., Binghamton, looks for a
brass plano wire to replace one from an
upright Baldwin plano that's In the shop
being rebuilt.
196

To buy or not to buy an old piano ..

that is the question.
The answer isn't all black and white.
Plunking down money for that vintage piano at a garage sale or laying out
dollars to fix up the old upright just inherited from Aunt Mabel can be tough decisions for the uneducated consumer.
But learn a bit about piano construction, preservation and repair and you
could become the owner of an instrument
that'll do you, your children and your
children's children proud, says
Christopher Larkin, owner of Larkin
Musical Instrument Co., a Binghamton,
New York business since 1901.
Pianos: They come in every size,
shape, style and condition, some still in

pristine health, others in such bad shape

that they should have been hauled to the
dump years ago. Larkin calls the latter
"piano-shaped objects." They're better put
to use as a plant stand or a dock mooring
than as a musical instrument, he said.
But most fall somewhere in the middle, according to Arthur A. Reblitz,
author of Piano Servicing, Tuning and
Rebuilding for the Professional, the
Student, the Hobbyist, a book piano technicians consider their Bible.
Don't expect hard-and-fast rules
about what makes a piano worth fixing,':r-)
say piano restorers and technicians. You' ,
have to weigh brand names, size, quality,
age, condition and personal preference,
said Reblitz.

Like spaghetti sauce, the ingredients

are varied, said Larkin. It's how you put
together a piano's 5,500 parts that matters.

PIANO MYTHS
Misleading claims you may hear when
shopping for a piano:

What's in a name?
First consideration is brand name.
The brand, while an indicator of how
well built the piano was when new, says
nothing about the state of preservation of
an old instrument. A badly abused highquality piano might be worth less than a
well-preserved one of somewhat lesser
quality, Reblitz said.
Larkin advises buyers to look for the
big six: Stein way, Baldwin, Mason &
Hamlin, Chickering, Knabe and Sohmer.
Those companies used the best materials,
he said.
Brand name recognition isn't the
whole story, however.
"Pianos are like people," said Harvey
Roehl of Vestal, an expert on mechanical
musical instruments and restoration. "Just
because the family name is good doesn't
mean the individual is. Every good family has its black sheep."
Brand name is important if you're
looking for resale value, said John
Kanazawich, a technician for 15 years and
owner of A-440 Piano Service of
Binghamton.
"Even if you have a crummy
Steinway, you can still get a lot of money
for it," he said. However, countless numbers of obscure makers created fine
instruments, he said.

Bigger is better
Size is the next consideration. In general, Reblitz said, bigger is better.
Pianists and technicians generally
agree that pianos come in descending
order of desirability:
Large grand (longer than 6 feet 4 inches)
Medium-length grand (5 feet 8 inches to
6 feet 4 inches)
Fine-quality small grand (shorter than 5
feet 8 inches)
Large upright (taller than 51 inches)
Studio upright (44 inches to 51 inches)
Fine-quality console (38 inches to 44
inches)
Spinet (shorter than 38 inches high).

Ask its age

Age is another concern. Although
Victorian pianos are pretty to look at,
pianos made after 1900 are better sounding and more durable. The years from
.....IJ. 905 to 1929 saw production of many
flne-quality pianos.
Avoid pianos made during the Great
Depression and World War II eras, from
1930 to 1945, when many small, inexpen-

"This piano is an upright grand."

Reality: That just means a big upright. It
doesn't mean it has grand piano action.
''This piano is worth a lot because it has
ivory keys."
Reality: A keyboard with perfect ivories is
desirable, but chipped ivory keys are not as
valued. In the long run, a poor-quality piano
with ivory keys is still a poor-quality piano.
"This piano is very fine, because it's
very old."
Reality: An old piano isn't necessarily better
than a newer one.
"This piano never needs tuning."

This is a section of the keyboard

from a Chickering baby Grand piano
under repair at Larkin. A piano has
some 5,500 parts.

Reality: The seller probably can't hear well

enough to tell if it's in tune or not. A fine-quality piano will keep its tune longer than one of
lesser quality, but all pianos need tuning.
- Arthur A. Reblitz

sive consoles and spinets were built.

Production of better-quality grands
and vertical pianos increased after the
mid-40s, Reblitz noted. In the '70s and
'80s, good-quality pianos from Japan
(Kawaii and Yamaha) made an appearance. Most recently, some really bad
pianos have been imported from China
and Russia, Larkin said.
How do you tell a piano's age? Ask
the owner, but allow for exaggeration.
Reblitz recommended getting a bill of sale.
To be really sure, look for the serial
number, usually imprinted on a plate
under the lid or on the backside of
uprights. Then look it up in the Pierce
Piano Atlas.

The dirty truth

Probably the most important factor is
the piano's condition, technicians agree.
Expect to get you knees and hands
dirty to determine how well a piano has
been looked after. Take off any parts that
are removable and examine every inch,
including the back and underneath. Look
for loose glue joints, which usually mean
the piano has been exposed to excessive
dryness.
If the main structural parts of the
piano need disassembly, you're talking
big bucks for repair, Reblitz said.
A word of caution: Never climb
under a grand piano' that looks shaky.
Shove a piano bench under first to break
its potential collapse, said Larkin, who
speaks from experience.

Inside, look for big cracks in the

metal plate or soundboard that will make
the piano sound like a bad loudspeaker,
Reblitz said.
Check the strings and tuning pins for
rust, caked dirt and corrosion, or tell-tale
brand-new strings that probably mean the
rest are old and ready to break.
Look at the keys for warping, check
the condition of the ivories, and examine
the hammers to see if they're misshapen
and the felts to see if they're missing or
tattered.
Look for signs of water damage. A
giveaway is the presence of bright red
streaks where the dye from red felts has
run onto adjacent parts. If there's extensive water damage, don't buy, Reblitz said.

Sit down and play

If you've gotten this far, sit down and
play the piano all the way up and down,
very loudly and very softly, said Larkin.
Listen for consistency of sound from note
to note. Be alert for hammers hitting
wrong strings, buzzing base notes, clicking action parts, keys that play more than
one note at a time. All are signs of big
trouble ahead, he said.
One other point: Undoing badly done
repair work can be very expensive, Larkin
said.
To be happy with an old piano, you
have to like how it plays and sounds, said
Roehl. If it's a nice instrument, you'll
know it, he said.
Kanazawich agreed. "Really, the
197

Binghamton's piano past

By Lee Shepherd, Staff writer

CHUCK HAUPT/PRESS & SUN-BULLETIN

Christopher Larkin, forth-generation

owner of Larkin Musical Insturment Co.
Inc., 19 Chenango St., Binghamton, says
this second-hand piano on display in the
company's showroom is an Art Deco
Steinway from 1953.
overriding factor that determines whether
a piano is good for you is whether you
like it."

Don't be cheap
So what kind of money are we talking here? Beyond the purchase price for
the piano, expect to pay another $100 for
several tunings (required if the instrument
has not been played for a long time), and
another $150 to $200 for hauling.
If the piano needs major repair, you
can spend in the thousands, Larkin said.
A musical instrument is not the place
to be cheap, Reblitz said. A corner cut
here and a dollar saved there will result in
a disappointing instrument, while time
and money taken to get the job done right
will give you a piano that will provide
many years of enjoyment, he said.

A pro can help

Feeling overwhelmed and out of your
depth?
Then hire a technician to check out the
piano for you, said Roehl. A $30 to $40
technician's fee will be well worth it if
you're in the market for a piano priced at
several hundred dollars. Ask musicians or
music stores to recommend well-reputed
technicians, said RoeW, and inquire about
membership in the Piano Technicians
Guild Inc. Those who attain the level of
198

There's a link qetween pianos and

Binghamton's glorious past as a manufacturing center - inventor Edwin A. Link.
When Link was 6, his father bought
the bankrupt Binghamton Automatic
Music Co., a manufacturer of player
pianos, and moved the family here from
Huntington, Indiana.
Actually, the company didn't make
pianos. It imported them from the
Haddorff Piano Company in Rockford,
Illinois, then installed gadgets to make
the instruments coin-operated, said

Harvey Roehl of Vestal, an expert on11

mechanical musical instruments.
.
Renamed the Link Piano and Organ
Company, the company's basement was
where young Edwin learned how to build
and repair organs. In 1929, he built the
first pilot training machine from piano
parts and organ bellows.
The piano company went out of business during the Great Depression, but
Link's flight trainers led to the creation of
a series of companies that were a
Southern Tier fixture.

Registered Craftsmen have demonstrated

proficiency, Roehl said.
Never, ever hire a piano tuner/technician who knocks on your door soliciting,
Larkin said. A con artist might give you a
rock-bottom price for tuning, but invariably will find something else that "needs
fixing" that'll cost extra.

put a jar of water inside or underneath the

piano. And don't let small children drop
objects in it, Larkin said.
Last but not least, take a word of
advice from a man who's moved ninefoot grand pianos to fifth-story lofts, cut
pianos in half with a chain saw, and
knocked down walls to remove them
from basements (and has the scars to
prove it). Don't move your own piano
and don't ask friends to do it, Larkin said. .
"You won't remain friends for long."
Hire professional piano movers, he ,
said.

A first instrument
If you're shopping for a piano for
your child, don't think you can get away
with a clunker instrument, said Larkin.
That's like buying a threadbare baseball
mitt or a second-rate bat for your wouldbe Mickey Mantle, he said.
A piano has to sound good and feel
good for a child to want to practice and
stick with lessons, he said.
Too often, Larkin sees parents dooming their budding Mozarts to failure by
setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy.
They hated piano lessons themselves and
expect their kids will hate them too. So
they buy a crummy piano, rationalizing
that it's good enough for a child who will
probably quit anyway.
That brings up an alternative. Parents
might want to rent a new piano from a
piano store for six months, for approximately $40 a month. By the end of that
time, they'll know if their child has talent
and is going to stay with it, Larkin said.

Take care of it
OK. You've bitten the bullet and
bought a piano.
Now take care of it, Larkin said.
Tune the piano twice a year, just after
you've turned the furnace on or off for
the change of seasons. Don't put plants
on it. Don't expose it to excessive dryness or humidity. In a very dry house,

?i
I

READ ALL ABOUT IT

To learn more about old pianos, try
the following books. The Dodge and Gill
books are out of print and may be located
through a second-hand book dealer. A
piano technician or music store should
have a copy of the Pierce Atlas:
On servicing: Piano Servicing, Tuning
and Rebuilding by Arthur Reblitz (second edition), available from The Vestal
Press Ltd., $29.95 for softcover,
$39.95 for hard cover. Call 800-2924738.
On piano history: Pianos and Their
Makers by Alfred Dodge. Dover
Publications, Inc. 1972; The Book of
the Piano by Dominic Gill, Cornell
University Press, 1981.
On dating old pianos: Pierce Piano
Atlas by N.E. Michel, Long Beach
Publishers, various editions.
~

75 YEARS AGO

An Interesting Invention From the

Filmusic Company

Synching Music and Film

The Synchron-O-Meter, a device for the perfect synchronization of mechanically played music to the running of a
motion picture, recently had a successful trial in Los Angeles.
The system has been perfected by the Filmusic Co.
Finished rolls created with this system are called Featurolls
and are placed in the player piano in motion picture theaters
that are unable to provide an orchestra or even an organ. By
means of the Synchron-O-Meter, a perfect tempo between the
music and the scene on the screen is achieved.

by Alan Pier
Music Trades Magazine reported in June 1921 that the
Filmusic Company had introduced a method for synchronizing
a piano roll with a film by means of a device called a SynchronO-Meter. The text of the announcement appears to the right.
Does anyone in our readership know how this thing worked?
Did Filmusic make special rolls for this device?

Tales from the Tuner

By Paul Bliss
Sent in by Jean Karbler

1.J-

(The professional musician is almost as dependent upon a

good tuner as the surgeon is upon a fine nurse. Paul Bliss,
noted composer and editor, for many years on the staff of 'The
Etude," recently sent us the following amusing comments upon
the tuner's daily trials.)
My piano tuner was here yesterday and told me of being
called to tune a "grand" for some woman. As he opened the top
he found in it a lot of fine powder. He asked her what it was.
She told him that she knew resin was good for violin strings; so
she had got a cake of it which she frequently rubbed on the
piano strings.
Another woman showed him rust on the strings where they
are wound around the pins. He said he could and should

remove it. But she thought his price too high. A month later
she sent for him again. He examined the piano and found she
had soaked all the pegs with oil which of course went down
into the wood and completely ruined the piano - although she
had indeed saved the ten dollars which he would have charged
to have had it properly fixed.
Still another woman called him up to say a number of
things, with a stress on his poor workmanship.
He went out to find two keys stuck together. As he was taking out the action he enjoyed the tirade in.lf which continued
until he lifted out the offending members. Out dropped a five
cent piece - at which time mother stopped her harangue and little Johnnie, aged seven years, left the room very suddenly.

EDISON'S CONCRETE PIANO

From Invention & Technology, Winter 1996
Sent in by Don Breen
During 1911 Edison molded a piano, a
Not content to solve the world's housing
bathtub, and sample cabinets for his phonoproblems, in 1911 Thomas Edison took on
graphs, which he particularly hoped would
the furniture industry, to the enthusiastic
catch on. In December he shipped a pair of
delight (as usual) of the press. Boasting that
the consoles on a round trip to Chicago and
concrete furniture could be made just as
New Orleans, accompanied by press releases
attractive as wood and far more lasting and
to all the city newspapers along the way.
durable, he began molding some common
With typical showmanship, he attached signs
household pieces.
1I<>..A ~CI(I/(G
to the sides of the crates reading, "Please drop
Using air-impregnated "foam" concrete
lin: l'lu1C/4IJ" ""'~E'G'C lItE'"P..xo
and abuse this package."
developed in his laboratory, Edison claimed
At the end of January 1912, the Edison
that the weight could be kept down to about The suggestion delighted cartoonists.
castings were scheduled to be exhibited at the
150 percent of a comparable object made of
MAKING FURNITURE
annual cement-industry show in New York
wood. Furthermore, with highly polished
City. To the dismay of the promoters, Edison
molds, the effect could be equal in appearout of concrete was
never showed up. There was no explanation,
ance and pleasantly colored, with either mirnot one of Edison's
and Edison declined to discuss concrete furniror-smooth or wood-grain finish.
ture from that day on. Though there is no
"Imagine," he said, "a newlywed couple
better ideas
documentation, it can be speculated that the
having to go into installment debt to buy
cases with the phonograph cabinets, which were supposed to be
, $450 worth of new household furnishings of dubious or poor
opened and displayed at the show, arrived home in no condition
quality, or having an opportunity to buy my concrete furniture
to attend the event. Regardless of its value and appearance,
for less than $200 - furniture that would outlast their marriage!'~ '.
Edison's concrete furniture just never caught on.
Bedroom sets were even projected to sell under the Edison
name in the five-to-six-dollar price range, though one suspects
that the mattresses might have been a little firm.

U.

199

Written by Clay Shorkey

Sent in by Clay Shorkey and Bill Eicher

August 29" 1894

'-

-l\lay 15., 1996

,

,.:::/"

CELEBRATING THE LIFE

OF

RUTH BINGAMAN SMITH

May 18, 1996 at 3:00 pm

Porter Loring Chapel

1101 McCullough Avenue
San Antonio, Texas

200

,)

Ruth Bingaman Smith

The

pianist and early recording artist Ruth

Bingaman Smith was born on August 29,
1894, in Columbus, Ohio. A longtime San
Antonio resident, she moved to Texas at the
age of nine with her parents, Anna L. and
William Lee Bingaman, who was employed
at Thomas Goggan and Brothers Music
Store.
In 1905, after studying with Carl Hahn, the
conductor of the San Antonio Symphony,
she played Beethoven's C Major Concerto
at the great Saengerfest at Beethoven Hall.
Her first formal recital followed in 1911 at
St. Mary's Parochial School with a performance of Mendelssohn's Concerto and
Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata.
She attended San Antonio High School,
graduating in 1913 and studied with John
Steinfeldt. She made her debut with the
San Antonio Symphony in 1915, playing
the Saint-Saen's Concerto in G Minor.
She moved to New York City at the age of
21 and continued her studies with pianist
Ernest Hutcheson, who became the first
Dean of the Juilliard School of Music and
later with Alberto Jonas, a renowned
teacher from Berlin.
In 1919 she married Harrison Herman and
moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where
she studied music history, theory and composition at Yale University. In 1921 she
made her New York debut at Carnegie
Recital Hall, subsequently touring the
United States with fellow Texans Dreda
Aves and Rafaelo Diaz, singers with the
Metropolitan Opera.
During the 1920s she became a featured
artist for Deluxe Reproducing Roll
Corporation of New York, making 14
recordings, including two compositions by
her former Texas teacher John Steinfeldt,
"The Fountain" and "Chanson D' Amour," - .
as well as Texan David Guion's "Turkey in

the Straw." She also toured the eastern

cities for Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano
Company, giving comparison recitals. She
concertized in many parts of the United
States where her playing was described as
"Teeming with fire and energy, poetic tone
and real musical emotion."
During World War II, she lived in
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she had a
weekly radio program of music and meditation. After her husband was killed in action
in Belgium on December 26, 1944, she
returned to San Antonio to live. In 1948
she married Harrison Smith and moved
with him to Charleston, West Virginia,
where she performed with the Charleston
Symphony Orchestra.
She returned to San Antonio in 1957 after a
divorce from Harrison Smith. In San
Antonio she performed several recitals and
occasionally on radio programs but also
became interested in writing poetry, publishing two volumes of her work. She was
listed in Texas Women ofDistinction in
1962 and won an award from the Texas
Composers League for her "Poeme
Heroique" for cello and piano.
Ms. Smith gave her final public performance on February 23, 1991, at the
University of Texas, Barker Texas History
Center, playing again the music of John
Steinfeldt as well as Frederic Chopin. On
that occasion Governor Ann Richards sent a
proclamation recognizing Ruth Bingaman
Smith's contributions to classical music.
Ms. Smith was an Honorary Life Director
of the Tuesday Musical Club, a founding
member of Man and Beast Inc., a member
of the Alamo Chapter of the Daughters of
the American Revolution, the Yale Alumni
Association, and an honorary member of
the Automatic Musical Instrument
Collectors Association.

201

..

-./'

Memorial Service
Reverend Joe Walts, Jr., Officiating

Prelude -

((Le Jeu de la Fontaine" (The Play of the Fountain)

played by Ruth Bingaman Smith

Prayer
Old Testament Reading New Testament Reading Instrumental -

Psalm 23
II Corinthians 5: 1-8

"Traumerci"(Daydreams)

Eulogy
Hymn - ((Shepherd Show Me How To Go"
Gospel -

~1

John 11:25-26
14:27-28

The Lord's Prayer

Hymn - ttMorning Has Broken"
Blessing -

Numbers 6:24-26

Postlude -

((Meditation" from Thafse

-l
202

Ode to My Fingers
My ten once-agile fingers,
on my two once-agile hands,
That swept the keyboard rapturously,
fulfilling soul's demands
In music's charm and passion,
Translated from the score,
Tell me old age is whispering
Virtuosity'S no more.
Thru long, long years since childhood,
You have been taught to play
In piano's patient practice
Of training, day by day
In concerts and recitals,
We've achieved some small renown.
Dear faithful little fingers,
You've never let me down.
'''\

Lr

So we will go on playing
Until some future day,
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound
To summon us away.

To slip out of mortality,

Its restlessness and blight,
And ascend up to reality,
Where all is peace and light
Then, no more aching bones and muscles,
.
Little fingers, we'll be free
To find a ghost piano,
And wake up every key.
The angels will be listening,
We will take them by surprise,
And God, Himself, may smile, and say,
"Love's Music Never Dies."

Ruth Bingaman Smith

203

News FrolTI The Chapters

April Meeting

The April meeting of the Founding Chapter was at Jim

Callahan's Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland. Jim mixes
business with pleasure: His personal collection includes both a
Wurlitzer and a National nickelodeon on the floor, and they are
surrounded with both new and used pianos. Jim is also a
Yamaha dealer and had a Yamaha grand playing with a disk. I'm
sold - it sounded great! I'm not sure I would want to make a
comparison between a paper-playing reproducing piano and a
disk-player.
Jim has a very unique Knabe Ampico "A" with an unusual
art case. I don't know where jim finds these jewels. Bob
Lemon checked out the Ampico mechanism and said it was
early, but looked great.
Jim, thank you for having us.

Margaret Wilcox, Sandy Swirsky, and Lyle Merithew

Bob Lemon checking out the Knabe Amipco.

Host Jim Callahan with the Art Case Knabe.

Bernice Carnes, Bob & Sonja Lemon

204

Jim and Michele Callahan with son Joey

May Meeting
Your reporters hosted a joint meeting of the Founding and
Sierra Nevada Chapters at Sutter Creek on May 18. The main
feature of the meeting was the grand piano on the outside porch
~ playing all day for the 35 members and guests. The piano was
generously loaned for the day by the Piano Disc Company of
. Sacramento. Best of
Steve Merritt, who records for Piano
Disc and has worked for Disney Studios, played live most of the
day. This guy is great to say the least; ragtime, blues, pop, and
classical; he does it all. I want to thank Steve and the folks at
Piano Disc for such great entertainment.
Our new home is under construction, and guests wandered
through it and the yard enjoying the creek views, rock walls, and
the outdoors in general. Part of our collection is temporarily
housed in the guest house shop. The Seeburg "E" and "G"
along with the Empress Style "Y" never missed a beat. The
encore Banjo played on in the guest house while we went
through the buffet line. Eric Bernhoft was the slot jackpot winner of the day; congratulations, Eric. As host, John was all over
the property showing/explaining different things. The other
thing that was everywhere was the piano music from the outside
grand.
This meeting was our annual joint chapter barbeque. Our
good neighbor and master BBQ chef, George Cunningham, of
the Sierra Nevada Chapter cooked the tri-tips and turkey. It was
the best ever - none left. George does the cooking and slicing of
the barbeque while John moves around talking with guests;
thanks George.

an

Bob Whiteley, Margaret Wilcox, Barbara Whiteley, and Nadine

Motto-Ros. /n the background, Nancy & Richard Riley and
bricks for the new house.

Steve Merritt doing what sounds best at the keyboard of the

piano disc Grand. Our unfinished house in the background.

Eric Bernhoft & Richard Reutlinger listening to the Seeburg G.

Alan Erb making minor adjustments to the Seeburg E under the

close eyes ofRick Simms & Sara Erb.

Jack Viegas & Don Dusenbury ofPiano Disc with Dale Fox
having a good time at Sutter Creek.

George Cunningham, Sierra Nevada Chapter, and John MotoRos cutting BBQ meat for hungry AM/CANs.
205

-(

Fine tuning the Melville Clark Organ.

Our Saturday, April 27th AMICA meeting rolled around

with quite a bit of anticipation. We'd received an enticing letter
from our hosts Margie and Kent Williams outlining their collection. They have a beautiful house high atop a hill in New
Castle, California. Upon entering their house, every nook and
cranny holds a treasure. Their collection is well worth seeing.
They have various cylinder music boxes, as well as a 15"
Regina Disc Music box with a double-comb, various hand crank
organs and a Leopold de Vissicher 70-hole piano (converted to
play Marantz cassettes). They also have an Orpheus Grand
player reed organ that sounds like pipes! As if that isn't enough
to take in, everywhere there are antique bottles (some 2,000
years old!) as well as religious antiquities, etc. We had lots of
fun. A big thank you to our new members Margie and Kent
Williams.

One of Kent and Margie s beautiful music boxes.

Leopold de Vissicher Piano

Tom and Virginia Hawthome with our hostess Margie Williams.

Becky Kane plays a tune.

Bottles. bottles everywhere!

206

.)

.)

The Texas Chapter of AMICA held a delightful meeting in

Granbury, Texas on June 22, 1996. Among the attractions in
Granbury are the Granbury Opera House, the Nutt House
Restaurant, and a veritable cornucopia of shops on the historic
square. Our first stop was the Nutt House Restaurant. Far from
being the insane asylum its name implies, the Nutt House
Restaurant is housed in a building built by the pioneering Nutt
brothers, which for many years housed the Nutt Hotel.
Refurbished in the 1970's, it now houses the Nutt House
Restaurant, a candy shop, and a bed-and-breakfast inn.
We had planned to conduct our business meeting at the
restaurant, but the large crowd there prevented us from doing so.
We decided to attempt a meeting at the Opera House before the
show, but we were told this, too, was impossible. We decided to
do a little shopping before the 2:00 production of "For Me and
My Girl", which we were planning to attend at the Opera House.
Although we broke up into groups of two and three to survey
the shops, word quickly spread among us that one of the shops
had a player piano and rolls for sale. In no time we were all
there and we wound up holding our business meeting in the
back room.
Among the topics discussed were the recent passing of
Honorary Member Ruth Bingaman Smith, donating the
Chapter's copy of the Welte book to the University of North
Texas in Ruth's memory, and various suggestions for improving
our newsletter, The Old Piano Roll News.
After our meeting, the shop owner told us he had lots more
rolls at his home, and that he would go get them while we were
at the show. We agreed to return, and then walked across the
square to the Opera House. As we arrived, members of the
audience were in the midst of a spirited sing-along, which some
(but not all) of us joined in with gusto (we have a few shy
souls). The show, a 1930's musical called For Me and My Girl,
was an absolute delight, and very well done by the resident
company.
After the show, we returned to the aforementioned shop,
where we found a variety of 88-note and AMPICO rolls. When
the buying frenzy was over, most everyone had new rolls to take
home (I bought seven). By this time, evening was fast approach-.
ing, and we took our leave of this delightful town, returning to .
our homes to enjoy our new rolls and our memories of a great
meeting.

On Saturday, June 8th, at about 6:00 p.m., when the Griffith

Park Carousel was closed to the public after a hard day, about 80
or more AMICAns and MBSI members congregated there. It
was easy to find, with the wonderful mighty Stinson Band Organ
(165) playing its heart out and leading us to the scene of the fun.
(It also led a few people who were not with our group, and they
stood and watched the obvious enjoyment of those inside the
fence. Many of them decided to come back Sunday when they
could ride, too.)
The Stinson is the largest band organ playing with a carousel
on the west coast. It took two years to build, and contairu; 256
wood pipes (trumpets, trombones, bass horns, flutes, piccolos
and other wind instruments). It also has a bass drum, tympani,
snare drum, cymbal, wood block, bells, and triangle. Add to that
two angels, two lady bell-ringers, and a conductor who not only
conducts but also gives the cue for the glockenspiel bells to play.
This is a massive, wonderful instrument, and is reason enough to
attend this meeting.
To add to the fun, the carousel, built in 1926 for use in San
Diego, with 68 hand-carved horses with real horse hair tails, was
open for our exclusive use, and use it we did. This is always a
favorite meeting with nearly everyone, as it is the one we can
bring our kids, grandkids, neighbors with their kids, and the
whole family and all our friends. That doesn't happen too often,
for obvious reasons. We had a good turnout this year, and lots of
kids of all ages.
They may not have appreciated that the first and second row
of horses are virtually interchangeable, or that all four rows of
horses are jeweled and hand-detailed (although several of the
kids and adults alike were heard to admire the jewels), many
specially carved at the Spillman Factory in North Tonawanda,
New York for this machine, but they sure appreciated the fact
that the ride is just plain fun!!! Whether they sat on the horses
or in the chariots, it was fun, and it did not matter whether the
riders were 3, 30, or in their eighties.
This machine has been located in Griffith Park since 1935.
It was moved from San Diego when the Depression made a victim of this wonderful machine. Luckily, it was purchased by
Ross Davis and moved here.
Members Warren Deasy and Rosemary West purchased
the whole shebang in 1984, and are slowly restoring it. This is a
big job, very expensive, and will take a long time. It is worth it,
of course. This is a unique treasure, and Rosemary and Warren
are desirous of having it preserved for future generations.
Real carousels with wooden original horses and band organs
are getting harder and harder to find. Many of them are disbanded, the horses sold off to collectors, and there you go!
We certainly owe Warren and Rosemary a debt of gratitude
207

for hosting the meeting. They work all day, and then put up with
us all evening. It takes special people to do this kind of thing,
and we do appreciate it.
AMICA had a very short meeting, as the potluck dinner was
to wait until after the meeting, and Dick wanted to avoid a mob
uprising in the park (mostly since he would have been the obvious target!). The meeting was called to a reasonable semblance
of order at 6:22. There was a treasurer's report, which found us
in a nice position there, and it was brought out that we have sold
almost all of the table favors which were left over. There are just
a few left, and they will be sold soon.
We had hoped to have a Band Organ Rally in lieu of our
August meeting, but that has not panned out, so it looks like we
will have no meeting in August. (Not too big a problem, since
the Conventions for AMICA and MBSI will fall before and during that time anyhow.)
Since it is that time of year, a call went out for a Nominating
Committee. That was filled fairly easily ... could it have had
something to do with the fact that most of the officers will be
remaining for their second term anyway? Victoria Esposito,
Bill Blair and Dave Reidy agreed to handle the job.
Visitors and guests were introduced, and the meeting was
adjourned at about 6:39.
Many of us will meet again in St. Louis at the Convention,
and we are looking forward to that. We always have a good
turnout, and this will be no eXception. See you there!

Dick Rigg presents Rosemary West & Warren Deasy with a

small token of our gratitude.

Close-up ofthe certificate made by Brooke Osmundson which

was presented to Rosemary West.

Frank Nix makes sure all visitors have name tags, assisted by
Leora Sear. This group was easy - Doug Nix, his friend, Barbara
and Frank's grandchildren Brent & Haley, plus a friend of
Brents. Rochelle Mercer goes out the gate with her grandchild.
The kids enjoy the action, while Victoria Esposito closes her eyes
to just enjoy the ride and the wonderful music ofthe Stinson J65.

Dick Rigg, President of AM/CA, and Werner Pyha, MBS/

President, conduct their short business meeting in front of the
Merry-go-Round.
208

A close-up of one ofthe great old horses. That's Robin Biggins

climbing on!

NORTHERNLIGHTS CHAPTER
Reporter: Paul & Barbara Watkins -.
President: Donald Jones
Our May 5, 1996 spring meeting was hosted by Dr. Roland
and Marilyn Mattson of Spring Valley, Minnesota. They have
a Wurlitzer two manual eight rank theater pipe organ (581 pipes)
with an electrically connected/controlled Steinway upright
piano.
The organ's main chamber houses five ranks of pipes and a
metal harp. The solo chamber holds three ranks of pipes, the toy
counter, xylophone, chimes and glockenspiel. In addition to this
wonderful instrument, they have a Mason and Hamlin 9 foot
concert grand and another Steinway upright (this one a pump
player with two tracker bars).
The Mattson's purchased the organ in 1962 from a nearby
Lutheran Church that was moving. It remained at the church
until 1964 when the building was converted into apartments.
This prompted the organ's removal and storage until 1967. That
year 1967/68 the organ was reconditioned and installed in a
magnificently converted bam. The upper loft of the bam was
_ used for the organ and as an entertainment area with the area
beneath becoming their home environment.
We were entertained at the organ by Karl Eilers with some
music of spring. He said he was trying to urge our Minnesota
spring to arrive a little sooner. After his presentation and some
short excerpts from several others, we had our business meeting.
We discussed our next meeting in late July (7/28/96) and the
upcoming national Convention. Jason Beyer presided because
our president Don Jones was traveling in Italy. A good time
was enjoyed by all who attended.

The Barn or Organ Loft ofthe Mattson residence. Some ofthe

group Listening to the pipe organ 2 manual, 8 rank WurLitzer.

Rick was one ofthe briefperformers at the Mattson residence.

Our hosts Dr. Roland & Marilyn Mattson in their home (a renovated bam), beneath the organ loft.

The Barn Loft area ofthe Mattson residence in

Spring Valley, MN. Organist Karl Eilers at the
console ofthe 2 manual, 5 rank Wurlitzer.

Dave Kemmer, professional Piano Voicer, with friends, beneath

the organ loft.
209

I must mention Dave's other collections outside of musical

instruments. Go downstairs and you'll find a collection of
European locomotives and cars, dating back to the 1890's to
1930's. Some are wind-Up, electric and steam. David says he
". has one of the better collections in the United States. Some ~
other novelty items include a couple of "iron claws" that for a ".' I
nickel you can pick up a prize and an animated baseball game
.
from the late 1920's All Star Game. A few slot machines that
also sold a stick of gum or played a tune and secondary if you
win a few coins "OH" that was only incidental. Dave also has
to confess that he has to wait for some of his music. A real
early Gable automatic entertainer juke box around 1910 era was
located, but in need of restoration. He said it's worth the wait.
He also has several music boxes and a Regina 27" disk player.
With plenty to talk about and lots of good food and drink,
our host for this afternoon's meeting gave all of us a fine time.
Thank you very much, Dave.

The newly-weds Jason & Susan Beyer, at the

Mason & Hamlin nine-foot concert grand.

Dave s train collection

March 24, 1996 Meeting

David Palter wastes no time to play music. Some of us
labor years on our instruments in a painstaking effort to get the
first audible note, but what Dave wants is instant music. I
suppose there is nothing wrong with that philosophy, after all
Lady Liberty includes ready to play instruments and instruments ready to be restored. Dave's home is full of instruments
and antiques. His automatic musical instruments consist of a
Seeburg G orchestrion 1915, Mills, Violano, Western Electric
orchestrion and a Steinway Duo-Art. The main attraction for
this afternoon was the Seeburg G orchestrion. The music that
comes out of this machine is great.
Finding such a great instrument such as the Seeburg G
must take some investigation and knowledge to select just the
right one. Not all people can deal with this process alone, but
with the people in our chapter, David got the right help in
making the best decision. Thanks to Walter Kehoe and Paul
Manganaro and others who gave assistance. The Western
Electric orchestrion wasn't operating at the time of the meeting, but repairs were in the works for future events.
Our general meeting was open to discussions and introduction of new members and guests. As always a brief summary was given by all members as to what they are doing and
requests for assistance on various projects that are in the
works.
210

Joe Hutter (far background) gives Treasurer report."

Bill Maguire conducts business meeting

1947 AMI Juke box and Steinway Duo-Art 1926.

Dave Palter's Virtuoso with his toys on top.

David Randle checks his tuning.

June 9,1996 Meeting

Walter Kehoe. Jerry Goldstein. Randy Herr and guest.

WaIter and Kay Kehoe were hosts of this afternoon's

gathering with about 23 or so in attendance. I need not say
another word about Walter and Kay and their efforts in this
organization, but I will say however, how much of an influence they are on everyone who has known them over the
years. I wrote about Walter a few years ago when he had his
grand unveiling of the Wurlitzer mandolin pianorchestra with
his partner, Joe Hanulec.
The general meeting gave us some opportunity to discuss
our thoughts about our chapter and the national Convention
that will be held this summer. We are always looking for people to open their homes for our meetings. Since we are in the
New York - New Jersey area, an effort is made to divide the
meetings equally. We as a chapter take our interest in mechanical music seriously, and are interested in technical-programs
at every meeting, so anyone who belongs to our chapter are
encouraged to participate and share what knowledge they may
have. We were pleased to have as our guests, Paul and Hedy
Dietz. Paul is the former president of the Philadelphia
Chapter.
The main event of the afternoon musical entertainment
came from a Walters 58 note Aeolian orchestrelle. Built in
1902, would you believe that the leather in the WIND
MOTOR is still original. He purchased the Aeolian from a
magazine that was 10 years old, made a phone call hoping that
he might have a slim chance, and to his amazement it was still
for sale. This is quite an instrument and Walter gave me some

Dave makes a new friend with his "Iron Claw".

211

math to do in order to know how many valve pouches, primary

valve pouches, etc.. had to be restored. Too much for me to
calculate at this time. A labor of love. Also in his collection
is a Weber Duo-Art grand that played the afternoon away.
Another person playing the afternoon away was Joe Hutter
and his Tansabar player accordion. Walter showed several of
his music boxes and phonographs and of course played them
also. Thanks for the nice afternoon, Walter and Kay.

(jorground) Paul and Hedy Dietz all the way from Oakford.
PA.,jormally members of the Philadelphia Chapter.

];:1\

Members and guests

y;

Everyone admiring the table full ofmusic boxes. roller organs ~~

and other novelties.
'

Joe Hutter plays the player accordian.

The Heart of America Chapter converged on the Kansas

City, Missouri area for their spring meeting April 27 and 28.
This was a combined meeting with the Gateway Chapter to
finalize plans for the AMICA Convention to be held in St.
Louis in June.
The lovely home of Galen and Linda Bird in Grandview,
Missouri was the setting for the Saturday social which began
at 2:00 with refreshments and lots of visiting with members
and guests. The pig roast and the rest of the barbecue was
handled by Galen with his usual delicious results, while hi~~
wife, Linda, managed to keep up with the rest of the food an'Q I
drink, and be a perfect hostess.
We all had a wonderful time, even if the weather did not
Walter Kehoe with 1927 Weber Duo-Art.
212

cooperate. They had not had any measurable rain in a year, but
with our help it managed to rain most of the day.
After we were all full and content, we were entertained by a
silent movie accompanied by the Bird's American Photoplayer.
On Sunday morning, accompanied by more rain, we all
! gathered at the home of Mike and Sandy Schoeppner in
Kansas City, Missouri. Mike and Sandy purchased their lovely
home in a perfectly fantastic setting several months ago and it
was the first viewing for most of us. To say the least, we were
impressed with what they had accomplished in a short time.
We were fortified with coffee, juice and donuts when we
began our formal meeting called to order by President John
Washburn. After the meeting we all did more exploring of the
home and grounds (in the rain), getting acquainted with the
neighbors dogs, and much more visiting with all our friends.
The Schoeppner's served a delicious brunch which was
enjoyed by all, since we all like to eat. All kidding aside, we
were grateful for the wonderful rain since it was so badly needed. We just enjoyed it and had a fantastic time. Our thanks to
the Birds and Schoeppners for the enjoyable weekend.

Len Railsback pointing to a patriotic truck with a shiny calliope peaking through.

Galen Bird is the worlds best cook when it comes to pig

roasts, however his friend thinks he hogs the camera.

Galen and Linda Bird with their "Big Boy" to

greet fellow AMlCAns.

Bill Pohl, Gerold Keohler; Paul Morgenroth, and Yousuf

Wilson admiring Galen s instruments in his workshop.

Mike and Sandy Schoeppner also were our co-hosts and opened
their lovely home and proudly displayed music boxes to the group.

Heart ofAmerica AMlCAns are smiling because they know

what a GREAT time you are going to have at the AMlCA
Convention in St. Louie.
213

On Saturday, April 13 our Spring meeting began at the wonderful Tudor home of Tim Needler in Indianapolis. As we
walked in the door, we were greeted by music from his 1929
Mason & Hamlin Ampico. The mural in the dining room served
as a backdrop to a lovely buffet of pastries, including a pianodecorated cake, served on Tim's mother's china. Everyone was
anxious to see and hear his newly restored 1927 Mills Deluxe
Double Violano Virtuoso, the latest addition to his collection.
Other pianos enjoyed were the 1926 Steinway AR Duo-Art
Grand and the 1926 Baldwin Welte Licensee 5'6" Grand.

Kathy De Witt, Liz Barnhart & Bennett Leedy check out the
"piano" cake.

Newly restored and playing beautifully, Tim Needler's 1927 Mill/

Deluxe Violano Virtuoso Double Violin Player.

Kathy DeWitt & Margaret Frazer reminisce over London

convention pictures.

The 19265'6" Baldwin Welte Licensee.

Dan Tuttle, TIm Needler and Hal Malakinian in the foyer.

214

The 7' Mason & Hamlin Ampico.

Clark Counterman and Lawrence Frazer enjoy a book on

stained glass.

Pat & Kathy DeWitt, Lawrence Frazer & Betty & Hal
Malakinian enjoy Tom s Yamaha Disklavier.

Tom's 1919 Franklin Ampico A reproducing upright piano.

Tim Needler installs a roll in the Steinway Duo-Art as Jody
Trittipo and Kathy DeWitt look on.

Our next stop was an open house at Tom Whitehair's. His

collection includes a Yamaha 6'2" Disklavier Reproducing
Grand and a 1919 Franklin Ampico A Reproducing Upright.
Downstairs is his 1911 Weber 65/88 Themodist Upright Player
on which many of us took a tum at playing a favorite roll. He
had a lot to choose from as there were rolls everywhere in the
house from bedroom to basement! From Tom's we traveled to
The Torch restaurant for dinner to finish up the evening.

Doug Hatton & Liz Barnhart enjoy refreshments in Tom s kitchen.

Our host, Tom Whitehair chatting with Margaret Frazer.

Sunday morning we made the short trip to Fortville, Indiana

to the home of Paul and Pat Dyer whose large collection is
housed in an even larger building behind their home. Another
building houses the Dyer Organ Co. and Calliope Works where
Paul built his latest creation from scratch - the Dyer Band
Organ. Hal Malakinian entertained us with I've Been Working
on the Railroad on the street organ and Dan ThUle played the
calliope wonderfully. The huge 123 Key Mortier Taj Mahal
decorated with golden domes and a trumpeting angel played a
rousing rendition of Dixie among other tunes. Other items in
their collection included a DeCap Liberty Jazz Organ, a
Wurlitzer Band Organ, and a Victor phonograph with an unusual
215

gold fluted hom (accompanied by Nipper). Our secretary, Judy

Barnick, provided the money needed to ride the elephant,
which was among many other amusement park animals. Maybe
the slot machines would have provided a return on her investment. Speaking of returns, we wish many happy returns to
Judy and Alvin Wulfekuhl (our chapter treasurer) who were
married upon returning from our meeting.
Thanks to our hosts for a wonderful weekend, we'll be
looking forward to our Fall meeting in Michigan.

Paul Dyer demonstrates the street organ.

The Dyer's 123 Mortier Taj Mahal was a challenge to move.

Tom Whitehair, Liz Barnhart. Dan Tuttle. Pat DeWitt & Mike
Barnhart with the Decap in the background.

Our group enjoys the Calliope & Carousel Horse amidst the
Dyer colection.

The wonderfully
restored calliope.
216

You can evenjill'er up

at the Dyer 'sf

The Victor Phonograph.

ADVERTISING INFORMATION
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: 20 per word, $5.00 minimum for members. Non-members may advertise at 40 per
word ($10.00 minimum) Because of the low cost of classifieds, we are unable to provide proof copies.
PAYMENT: in u.s. funds must accompany order. Make
checks payable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL.
DEADLINES: 1st day of the odd months: January, March,
May, July, September, November. The Bulletin will be
mailed the 1st week of the even months.
AMICA RESERVES THE RIGHT TO ACCEPT,
REJECT, OR EDIT ANY AND ALL SUBMITTED
ARTICLES AND ADVERTISING.
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Full Page - 7 1{," x 10" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. $150.00
Half Page - 7 1{," x 4'1."

$ 80.00

Quarter Page -3'/," x 4 /4'

3

$ 45.00

Business Card - 3 1/," x 2" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. $ 30.00

Call for details. Non-member rates are double for display
advertising.
Each photograph or halftone $10.00
Insert Advertising: Call for quote.
We recommend that display advertisers supply camera-ready
copy. Copy that is oversized or undersized will be changed to
correct size at your cost. We can prepare an advertisement
from your suggested layout at cost.
PA YMENT: in U.S. funds, must accompany order.
Typesetting, layout size alteration charges will be billed separately. Make check payable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL.
DEADLINES: 1st day of the odd months: January, March,
May, July, September, November. The Bulletin will be
mailed the 1st week of the even months.
(Rev. 7-96)

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT

ALL ADVERTISING IN THE AMICA BULLETIN
All advertising should be directed to:
Robin Pratt
515 Scott Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736
Phone (419) 626-1903
Fax (419) 624-9454
Publication of business advertising in no way implies
AMICA's endorsement of any commercial operation.
However, AMICA reserves the right to refuse any ad that is
not in keeping with AMICA's general standards.
The BULLETIN accepts advertising without any endorsement, implied or otherwise, of the products or services being
offered. Ad copy must contain text directly related to the
product/service being offered. Extraneous text will be deleted
at the Publisher's discretion.
ADVERTISEMENTS: All advertising must be accompanied
by payment. No phone ads or written ads without payment
will be accepted. This policy was established by a unanimous
vote of the Board of AMICA at the 1991 Board Meeting and
reaffirmed at the 1992 meeting. AMICA reserves the right to
edit or to reject any ad that we deem inappropriate.

FOR SALE
1925 KNABE AMPICO A, 5'9" grand. Original hand-painted French
art case with matching bench, completely rebuilt. Two matching roll
cabinets with rolls. Excellent sounding instrument, $12,000. SONORA
upright phonograph, top condition in beautiful shape, $500. VICTOR
VICTROLA, -VV-21O lowboy with rebuilt head, $250. Stuart Kane,
1370 Page Street, San Francisco, CA 94117; phone 415-552-4142.
MASON & HAMLIN 5'8" 1916 Mahogany satin, wlPianodisc unit,
wlProdius Synthesizer accompaniment and bench, $16,000; CHICKERING 5'2" 1922 Walnut satin "Custom Centennial" with Ampico,
restored to perfection with matching bench, $9,900; BALDWIN 7'
1979 High Polished Ebony, with a PianoCorder system and artist
bench included. Immaculate condition! $15,000; FRANKLIN 54"
1915 dark Mahogany Upright, w/new finish (player mechanism needs
work) $2000 as is or $7000 completely restored and rebuilt.
Schroeder's Pianos, Sales and Service, 13119 Downey Avenue,
Paramount, California 90723; phone 310-923-2311. (4-96)
WESTERN ELECTRIC MASCOT. Completely original excellent
condition. Pneumatics and pump rebuilt some years ago. Playing$5,800. Joe Kramer, 412-621-3977. (4-96)
WURLITZER MAMMOTH, the largest Military Band Organ ever
sold by Wurlitzer, truly extraordinary, requiring extensive restoration
including some pipe replacement, once in a lifetime opportunity,
$75,000. WURLITZER CALIOLA, nice playing condition,
$14,500. WURLITZER C with wonder light, see Bowers page 677
upper right corner, pneumatics done, plays strong. $18,500.
NELSON WIGGENS 5X, partial restoration, restrung, plays strong,
$16,000. MILLS VIOLANO VIRTUOSO, fine original condition,
$25,000. MARSHALL & WENDELL AMPICO BABY GRAND,
4'9", Louis XV beautiful case, very good unrestored, with over 100
rolls, $6500. Many music boxes - call. Martin Roenigk, 26 Barton
Hill, East Hampton, CT 06424. 860-267-8682. (5-96)
MILLS VIOLANO recut rolls, 65-note piano rolls, 20 for $100;
WELTE rolls 80 for $720; SEEBURG "L" nickelodeon, $10,500;
SEEBURG "A" nickelodeon w/xylophone, $9,800; SEEBURG "K"
nickelodeon, $13,500; SEEBURG "G" Orchestrion, $75,000;
STEINWAY Duo-Art Grand Piano XR 6'1", $17,500; COINOLA
CX Orchestrion w/II instruments, $18,000; WURLITZER IX-B
Nickelodeon wlbells and roll changer (rare) $22,500; REPRODUCO
DUPLEX pian%rgan (rare) $22,500; STEINWAY Concert Player
Grand Piano Style "C" wlPianomation, $27,000; KNABE Ampico
Player Grand Piano, 5'4", $12,500; KOERNER Nickelodeon w/violin pipes, $12,600. All restored PRISTINE. BUYING: MUSIC
BOXES and all other automatic musical instruments. Wayne
Edmonston, 2177 Bishop Estates Road, Jacksonville, Florida 32259;
phone (904) 287-5996, FAX (904) 287-4131. (4-96)
Reproducing Upright Player Piano. Motor Player Corporation of
Chicago built this Electora Motor Player Reproducer in the early
twenties. It is in impeccable condition with new hoses and pneumaticlbellows coverings. The finish is original and has some very minor
checking. Many classical and popular Recordo Player rolls are currently available and play beautifully on this piano. It can also play
conventional player rolls. We recently regulated the action for lost
motion and replaced all back, balance, and key rail felts. $3,150
Negotiable. Please contact Jeffrey Fleming, Pleasant Hill, CA;
(510) 229-0408. (4-96)
Grand Pianos with Ampico "A", good rebuildable condition: 1926
CHICKERING, 5'4", mahogany, $2000; 1927 KNABE, 5'8",
Walnut, $2800; 1921 KNABE, 5'8" mahogany, $2000; 1923
HAINES BROS., 5'4", mahogany, $1300; complete un restored
upright AMPICO "A" player mechanism, $700; STODDARD
Ampico pneumatic stack with double valves, push rods, tubing rack,
B23, 21, 20, 19T, from 1917 Knabe Grand $100; WELTE box pump
& motor, $75. Crating and shipping not included. Vince Ricca,
Columbus, Ohio (614) 488-4208. (4-96)
Art Case STEINWAY DUO-ART LOUIS XV, 6'1" Mahogany player grand piano, choice unrestored, bench and rolls included, $15,500.
Complete set of AMPICO "A" parts from 1923 Chickering, $875.
Other Ampico parts (pump, drawers, expression, crescendo, etc.) for
sale. NELSON-WIGGENS STYLE 5X CASE (great roll cabinet)
$1,300. Fabulous carved LOUIS XV petit-point bench, 44" long
$1,250. Bill and Dee Kavouras (708) 474-8787. (4-96)
217

WEBER DUO-ART (#76471) FR, 5'11", plain case, mahogany,

French polished, piano and player mechanism professionally rebuilt
in 1988, 120 rolls and roll cabinet, $22,500. MARSHALL & WENDELL Ampico A (#108806) 65", Spanish Style Case and matching
bench, original finish, new hammers, Ampico professionally rebuilt
in 1978,230 rolls and roll cabinet, $17,500. Joseph F. Hoppe, 3548
Inwood Ave, New Orleans, LA 70131; (504) 391-2918. Call for pictures/ cassette. (4-96)
CREMONA NICKELODEON player piano, 1917, completely
restored, keyboard style with mandolin attachment, operates with bellows, cast iron fly wheel and leather belts, mechanism activated by
quarters, oak finish with three beveled glass windows lighted inside to
make mechanism visible, 10 ten-tune rolls, $12,000. Jerry Taylor, 3409
Rustwood Court, Fort Worth, Texas 76109; 817-737-6033. (4-96)
STEINWAY DUO-ART Model XR, 1927 Louis XV walnut case,
refinished, restrung, pneumatically rebuilt, with bench and rolls,
$24,000. Mel Septon, 9045 Karlov St., Skokie, IL 60076;
(847) 679-3455. (5-96)
Player piano for sale - over 100 years old by the Cable Co., Chicago Brand Conover Eight Instrument ORCHESTRION - player with a
25 cent coin slot to play. Stained glass panels light up. Comes with
four rolls, newly rebuilt mechanical interior 1986/88. Balboa Park
Inn, San Diego, CA; 1-800-938-8181. (4-96)
Mint condition 1929 AMPICO "A" SYMPHONIQUE 5'2" baby
grand (as featured on the cover of the NovemberlDecember 1994
Bulletin). Professionally restored inside and out in 1988. Satin
brown mahogany case and bench, includes approximately 50 rolls,
asking $8,900. Ed Brennan, 6520 Barnesdale Path, Centreville, VA
22020; 703-815-2121. (5-96)
TWO STEINWAY DUO-ART UPRIGHTS. Make one rebuilt
from these two. One rebuildable piano with no mechanism, and one
poor piano with mechanism, both 53" tall, same apparent scale,
$1,500. Tom Roby, 802-527-7405. (5-96)
KNABE AMPICO walnut grand 5'8", 1927, $3,500;
CHICKERING AMPICO mahogany grand 5'4", 1923, $2,750. We
also trade for non-player pianos; also purchase non-player pianos.
"Keep our number on your permanent file." Irv Jacoby, Jay Mart
Piano Wholesale, P.O. Box 21148, Cleveland, OH 44121; phone
216-382-7600 / FAX 216-382-3249. (4-96)
For sale from my collection: WURLITZER STYLE 153 DUPLEX
ORCHESTRAL BAND ORGAN, twin tracker system providing
for continuous playing of a 20-tune interchangeable program, multiple ranks of pipes, orchestra bells, drums, etc., ornate original front
with electric lights (somewhat scarce with this feature), large roll
library. Restored to mint condition by Mike Kitner. Looks and plays
like new! An attention-getting showpiece that will draw admiring
crowds from near and far. Originally used on the Dentzel Carousel in
Rock Springs Park, Chester, WV. $60,000. Dave Bowers, Box 1224,
Wolfeboro, NH 03894; phone 603-569-5095. (4-96)

WANTED
Any information on an AEOLIAN "Y" ORCHESTRELLE.
Restoring this organ and need any photos, books, and human knowledge to complete the restoration. All or any help will be appreciated.
Call or write Bruce Rolland, 2124 Havemeyer Lane, Redondo Beach,
California 90278; phone 310-376-5985. (4-96)
MUSIC BOXES, changers, cylinder boxes, player grand pianos,
nickelodeons, orchestrions, violin machines, all other automatic
musical instruments. Wayne Edmonston, 2177 Bishop Estates Rd.,
Jacksonville, Florida 32259; phone (904) 287-5996, FAX
(904) 287-4131. (4-96)
WANTED: 10 tune A ROLLS and 5 and 10 tune WURLITZER
65 Note APP rolls. Always buying, one or one hundred, collections,
estates; especially interested in CAPITOL A Rolls. Ed Sprankle,
1768 Leimert Blvd., Oakland, CA 94602-1930; phone
(510) 531-7867. (2-97)
218

WANTED: AEOLIAN 88/65 note push-up player. Must have full

88 note playing capability and be 100% complete. Prefer unrestored, rebuilt OK. Ed Sprankle, 1768 Leimert Blvd., Oakland, CA
94602-1930; hone (510) 531-7867. (5-96)
WANTED: Following piano rolls Beautiful Wisconsin (QRS 8566), _
Hello, Wisconsin (QRS 375), Pickaninny's Paradise (QRS 606),r
Tired of Me (QRS 1247), and Gloomy Sunday (QRS 5606).
Please state price and condition. Bruce Paulson, P.O. Box 66, Suring,
WI 54174; 414-842-2823 or FAX 414-842-4654. (4-96)
ARTIZANIBAB 46 Key rolls, also 150 WURLITZER rolls transcribed from 48 Key ArtizanlBab rolls. Howard Kohlbrenner, 2215
Clover Dr., Broomall, PA 19008; 610-356-3266. (4-96)
REGINA MUSIC BOX wanted in any condition. Also want Mills
Violin Machine, monkey organ and a nice musical pop-up bird box.
Arnold Levin, 2634 Woodlawn Road, Northbrook, IL 60062; phone
847-564-2893. (1-97)

ANNOUNCEMENT

Mark Lutton has done it again! The virtuoso Ragtime pianist who gave the Pianola world the spectacular LION TAMER RAG
(via ARTCRAFT Interpretive Arrangements for 88-Note and DuoArt) - triumphs a second time with this award-winning transcription
of Scott Joplin's THE CHRYSANTHEMUM ... for two pianos
and eight hands! As with many contemporary musicians, Mr. Lutton
selected ARTCRAFT Rolls when bringing his stellar arrangement to
the Pianola medium. Soon to be released as a definitive Duo-Art
roll, THE CHRYSANTHEMUM has all the fantastic elements of a
two-keyboard performance: the "stereo" effect of twin pianos, counterpoint bass octaves, exciting treble figurations ... and throughout it
all, Scott Joplin's lyric Ragtime melody floats above the technical
achievements, thanks to Aeolian's "Themodist" feature of the DuoArt action. [For Joplin fans, we continue to offer the 88-Note edition
of THE CHRYSANTHEMUM, perforated in The ARTCRAFT
Studio exactly 10 years ago! Together, the two rolls will make a _
startling contrast in keyboard striking approaches and musical perfor-':i
mances.] Forget "The Original Piano Trio" of the past. Now, you
,
can experience "4 Phantom Pianists" on your Duo-Art, and expression beyond your wildest dreams! The PIANOLA Quarterly has
entered Vol. II. If you aren't already a subscriber, order Vol. I @
$28.50 pp'd. US; if you like what you see ... sign up for Vol. II,
already in progress. It's all content and no social reporting! Write:
ARTCRAFT, PO Box 295, Wiscasset, ME 04578 USA. (4-96)
PIANO ROLL AUCTIONS, reproducing, 88-Note, and literature
by mail auction. Bennet Leedy Rolls, 4660 Hagar Shore Road,
Coloma, MI 49038; phone 616-468-5986. (1-97)
VINTAGE PIANO ROLLS, RECUTS AND NEW PERFOR
MANCES. Since 1970, we have supplied collectors with the finest in
reproducing and 88-note rolls thru our mail auctions, fixed-price
recuts and newly mastered performances. We regularly feature
Ampico, Duo-Art and Welte rolls and a great variety of 88-note rolls
with a specialty in hard-to-find rag and jazz categories. We also regularly recut many of these original gems. On top of all this, we produce
our exclusive line of Hot Piano Classics and Ragged Recollections
labels of jazz and rag performances never before available on rolls.
These are sold at a fixed price. Give us a try! Paul and Cindy Johnson,
The Piano Roll Center, 26390 Big Valley Rd. N.E., Poulsbo, WA
98370; phone 360-697-2422 or FAX 360-697-2522. (2-97)

)or-

SELECT INSTRUMENTS AVAILABLE! ! !

DUO-ARTs:

COIN OPERATED:

Steinway OR, 6'6", #242626, late style restored,

$25,000.
Steinway XR, 6' I", #205395, restored,
Temponamic, $30,000.
George Steck upright style 322, #63224, rebuilt,
$6800.

AMPICOs:
Knabe A, 5'2", #104130, refinished mahog, new
bridges and action, player rebuilt, $19,000.
Marshall & Wendell, top loader. 100% restored,
beautiful mahog, bench, rolls, very fine!
$14,500.

BAND ORGANS:
Stinson, large organ w/165 front, custom w. 50
rolls, $48,000.
Wurlitzer 146, Beautiful! restored, $29,000.
Tangley Calliope (original)w. new A roll player
rebuilt, $9500.

For more information contact:

Seeburg A, #57040 A roll piano, oak, restored and

refinished, $12,000.
National Dog Race Piano, 8 tune, rebuilt piano,
player and refinished. Approx, 200 orig. rolls!
$14,500.
Western Electric, G roll, Tambour, wood block,
xylo, manolin, triangle, rebuilt/refinished,
$18,000.
Ampico B, 5'3" Knabe, 107513 Adam style art
case w. ribbon mahog. satinwood inlay, $4500.
Hallet-Davis 5'6" artcase, shaded mahog. bench,
action regulated, ex-player, $5900.
Ampico A, 5'4" Marshall & Wendell painted case,
restrung & player rebuilt, $3600.
Steinway AR, mahog. gutted, $6000.
Ampico A, 5' 1" Franklin, mahog, original, some
case damage, $1800.
Recordo, Ellwood grand, mahog, original, $750.
Regina 27", floor model w. gallery, single play,
amber mahogany. Call.
Leabarjan Music Roll Perforator, restored as
new! $2500.

Robin Pratt 515 Scott Street Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736 419-626-1903 FAX 419-624-9454

FOR SALE
Parlor Organ
made by Broderip and Wilkinson,
London, circa 1810.
75 pipes, one 10 tune barrel
fully restored.
Photos or video available
to serious buyers.
Domenic DiBernardo
4710 19th Avenue
Markham, Ontario, Canada L6C 1M4
or call
905-887-9444
after 6 pm E.S.T.
(4-96)

219

MUSIC ROLL SHOP

131-112 Gaw Street, P.O. Box 510

Rawson, Ohio 45881 (419) 963-3075

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FOR SALE:

(Price includes shipping in U.s.A. on ALL items except #20) Order by item number. (No bidding) OHIO residents please add 5.5% tax.
1. Reprint of July 1920 Record Music Rolls for the Ampico by American
Piano Co. Nice gray with green accents, soft-cover catalog, measures 6" x 8"
x5/16". Just like the original. Price was $25.00 - Now $20.00.
2. The Ampico Reproducing Piano (reprint by A.M.R. Publishing).
Inspector's Reference Book for the Ampico Model A. This 8 1/2" x 11" combbound book with plastic cover has 16 pages of illustrations and diagrams plus
afew pages for your personal notes. Just the book for technicians! Price was
$15.00 - Now $12.50.
3. Ampico Service Manual 1929 (A.M.R. Reprint). Fifty-five pages of
mechanical details of the Ampico A, installation diagrams and descriptions, all
parts fully explained, many pictures of piano compartments, pictures of piano
factory, pictures of piano music cabinets, charts for various components of the
piano, etc. Book measures 8 1/2" x 11", is comb-bound, has plastic cover to
protect. Amust for technicians! Price: $15.00 each.
4. Composite of Ampico Bulletins issued August 1928 thru July 1929.
Reprinted exactly as originals were printed. This 81/2" x 11" book has heavy,
glossy pages crammed full of Ampico recordings and information. Cover is of
the same quality glossy, heavy paper. Don't miss out on this very interesting
reprint. Price was $8.50 - Now $7.50.
5. Reprint of 1930 Duo-Art Catalog Supplement - Duo-Art Piano Music
Supplement. Reprinted in 1974 by Frank Adams. All kinds of listings. A
supplement to all previous catalogs adding recordings not listed in the previous ones. Flashy red hardcover book measuring 8 3/4" x 11 1/4" with pages
481 thru 587. Originally sold for $20. Now $8.50 each. Abargain!!
6. Reprint of 1932 Duo-Art Roll Catalog - Music for the "Pianola" and
"Duo-Art" by Aeolian Co. (Full Scale and 65-Note). Original was a paperbound edition. This blue hardcover is an exact reproduction with a nicer
cover. Complete with composers and artists (Alphabetical listing), it is amust
for collectors. You will be pleasantly surprised at the good quality of this 168
page book which measures 71/8" x 9 3/4". Originally sold for $20.00 - Now
- $10.00.
7. Duo-Art Reproducing Piano Service Manual- Many manuals combined
and printed into one piUS much additional information. Full of diagrams with
several "fold outs', this comb-bound, extended and revised edition (copyright
1983) has a plastic protector cover and measures 81/2" x 11". This book
contains aweallh of knowledge. Price $22.50.
8. The Duo-Art Book of Music by the Aeolian Co. (reprint by AMR). Music
History; Music Structure and Form; Significant Masters of Harmony;
Composers listed by Country, etc., etc. This cream colored, soft-cover, combbound catalog has 87 pages of roll information and measures 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".
It is very different from the 1930 and 1932 catalogs. Price was $11.50 - Now
$10.00.
9. Reprint of Duo-Art Pianola Music (1915 Catalog). Lots of roll interpretation
in this gray soft-cover 6" x 9" book which has 82 pages. Pianists and the
compositions they interpreted, catalog arranged alphabetically by title and
composition. An excellent addition to your library and at a bargain price!
Price was $12.50 - Now $10.00.
10. Packet of Pictures of 11 Duo-Art Period Cases (Reprints). Pictures
measure 8 1/2" x 11" and have descriptions of pictures on the back. Price list
of many Duo-Art Cases at that time. Very nice to have for identification purposes too. Price was $8.00 - Now $7.00.
11. How to Test and Regulate the Art Echo - Apollo - Celco
Reproducing Medium (Copyright 1984 by A.M.R. Publishing Co.). This
cream colored, comb-bound 8 1/2" x 11 1/2", 13 page booklet has 3 blank
pages for your own notes, also. A "must" for piano technicians and scholars.
Price was $12.00 - Now $10.00.
12. Plano and Player Plano buyer's Guide of 1926(1984 Reprint by A.M.R.
Publishing Co.). This 170 page book of history related to hundreds of piano,
pipe and reed organ manufacturers. Plastic cover protects the cream with
orange accents soft cover. Book is comb-bound and measures 8 1/2" x 11"
and is very interesting besides being informative. Price: $12.00.
220

13. History of the Musical Box and of Mechanical Music by Alfred

Chapuis. This second edition (1992) was first published in Switzerland in
1955. Book has ablue dust cover over the blue hardcover, measures 8 3/4" x
11" with 303 pages of pictures and descriptions, etc. of music boxes and related small musical instruments. Only have a couple of these new shrink
wrapped books. It is areal bargain priced at $20.00 each.
14. Questions and Answers by Standard Player Monthly, compiled by Milton L.
Cheek. This 13 page book will answer all your questions about player problems.
Regulations, pneumatics, valves, etc. II has aplastic cover on top of the yellow
cardboard paper pages and is comb-bound. A"hot" item at $7.50 each.
15. Radio Art by Robert Hawes - photography by Paul Straker-Welds, Published
by Green Wood. This black hardcover book has avery colorful dust cover with
5 unusual radios pictured on it. The book is "chuck full" of colored pictures of
unusual radios, more radios and more radios. The 128 pages will keep you
spellbound for many hours of delightful musing and research. Don't miss out
- if you have a radio enthusiast friend, buy him one for agift! Size is 9 1/4" x
12". Price was $15.00 - Now $12.00.
16. Jukebox Art by Chris Pearce (London). (1991 copyright) Black hardcover
book (9 1/4" x 12") with the "King" of jukeboxes pictured on its dust cover.
Many colored pictures in the 128 pages of this history of jukebox evolution.
Very similar to radio book but for Jukebox enthusiasts. Was selling for $22.50
- Now priced at $18.00.
17. Jukeboxes 1900 -1992, Vol. I, First Edition by Frank Adams, Ph.D. Obscure,
mysterious and innovative American jukeboxes - a myriad of manufacturers
and their models. Black-purple softcover with silver lettering shows the quality that went into this 182 page comb-bound book. II measurers 8 1/2" x 11" ~
and is excellent for research. Price was $25.00 - Now $20.00.
I
I
18. Tote and Storage Roll Carriers. Attractive, versatile, solid wood piano roll
carriers are top-quality, hand crafted and come in two sizes and wood stains.
The regular size holds 27 regular piano rolls and the larger carrier holds 21
large size or 36 regular size rolls. They are made with a solid wood top and
bollom with spindles on either side and back to keep it light weight. The carrier has an open front for easy loading. Both sizes stand 21" high. The top and
bottom of the regular size carrier measures 8 1/4" x 13 1/4" deep, while the
larger one measures 10 1/4" x 131/4". Both have aconvenient cut-out handle
on top for carrying and stacking and four rubber safeguards on the bottom.
These carriers can be laid on their sides on top of a piano making it handy to
reach the rolls and yet simple to remove carrier when wanting to open the
piano or dust it. The carriers can also be laid on the back for effortless selection of rolls. They can be stacked in any direction and are terrific for avariety
of uses. There are two choices of woods and stains. The oak wood is finished
natural and the poplar wood has adark cherry stain and finish. The dark cherry (poplar wood) regular size carrier is $50.00 and the large one is $60.00.
The oak wood carriers are $55.00 for the regular size and $65.00 for the large
size. Shipping is included in the price!!!
19. Roll Boxes:
Large "buff" (Duo-Art) boxes - $4.25 each
Large and "Top hal" Ampico boxes - $4.25 each
Scuffed Ampico (both sizes) - $3.25 [damaged in shipment due to "rubbing"
- mostly gold print rubbed off with some slight scuff on boxes]
Plain Large Black boxes - $4.00
Shipping free on orders of six or more.
Small orders may be included in auction wins.
20. Assorted Flanges: Varied brands and sizes too numerous to list. Describe
needed flange in detail giving as much information as possible, such as type __
of material (metal, bakelite, etc.), color, words printed on flange, outside~~
ridges or rounded sho~lders, brand of roll, exact outside diameter, etc. Be'
sure to state "left" or "right" flange. We have "generic" plain brown large
flanges for Duo-Art and plain black large size for Ampico. You pay shipping
or include in your auction "wins".

Model "0" Steinway #199252

Hamburg, 1919.
and Fine Grand Pianos

COMPLETE RESTORATION
FACILITIES
OWNER OPERATED
Since 1967

High-gloss Ebony.
Red Welte mechanism.
100 Red Tab Rolls.
Piano and mechanism completely restored.
5 years warranty
$45,000.00 firm.
Call Mr. Charly Goldin (718) 680-3822
or Mr. Mikhail Bogomolny (718) 382-3203

CASE and VENEER REPAIRS

(4-96)

HAND-RUBBED MIRROR
or SATIN FINISHES IN VARNISH

VOICING AND TONE SPECIALIST

PNEUMATIC RESTORATIONS

Concert Quality Regulation

Lowest Prices, Known References,
Guaranteed Work.

A nice place to send an AMPICO. A good idea

for your DUO-ART. A premium choice.for the PLAYER
PIANO. Ben offers a rebuilding service with a 20 year
record of delivering service and excellence using the best
craftsmanship and materials.

Only the worlds finest known grades of material are used.

They are always fresh and continually checked.
Hot glue and original materials used throughout
wherever possible.

Craig Brougher
(816) 254-1693
FAX (816) 254-2710
f3aT-rr-~--==

(1-97)'

3500 Claremont
Independence, MO 64052

Ben's Player Piano Service

Dugan Road
Richfield Springs, NY 13439
Ben Gottfried
(315) 858-2164

WANTED TO BUY
MUSIO BOXES
~IUSI OAL OLOOI{S
MEOHANIOAL ORGANS
Always in the market for better quality disc and cylinder music boxes, musical clocks, singing birds, band
organs, player organs, monkey organs, Wurlitzer 78 rpm
jukeboxes, slot machines. Any condition.

MARTIN ROENIGI{
26 Barton Hill
East Hampton, Connecticut 06424
(860) 267-8682
Fax (860) 267-1120

(2-97)

221

LEEDY BROTHERS MUSIC ROLLS

4660 HAGAR SHORE ROAD, COLOMA, MI 49038
PHONE 616-468-5986,. FAX 616-468-3844

We are pleased of offer our third set of limited edifion reissues for the Ampico and Welte Licensee.
There are Ampico B rolls on this list. These rolls play well on any Ampico. This set contains many
scarce rolls including Lohengrin Prelude on Welte and Stormy weather on Ampico. Order by 9/20/96.
WELTE MIGNON LICENSEE MUSIC
C-1319 Chopin Prelude op28 n016 D flat major played by Ferruccio Busoni. Powerful rhythmic performance of
this prelude subtitled Raindrop. ($14.50)
D-265 Chopin Scherzo op39 played by Sandra Droucker. A fine presentation. ($15.00)
C-7466 Uszt Hungarian Rhapsody n04 played by George Liebling. This student of Lizst presents an
outstanding rendition of this rarely heard Rhapsody. ($14.50)
C-6893 Mendelssohn-Hutcheson Scherzo played by Katherine Bacon. From the incidental music composed for
A Midsummer Night's Dream. This familiar music is precisely recorded by Bacon. ($13.00)
C-7515 Rossini Barber of Seville Overture played by Ludwig Lendry. Another fine two hand arrangement by
Lendry of a classic overture. A long roll. ($16.00)
C-6964 Smetana By the Seashore played by Marguerite Volavy. This concert study has a lyrical melody with a
surging rhythm that suggests waves on the seashore. A signature performance by Volavy. ($13.50)
C-6206 Steinfeldt The Fountain played by Ruth Bingaman. Dazzling rendition of this showpiece-well played
with excellent coding. A favorite of ours. ($10.50)
C-122 Wagner Lohengrin Prelude played by Eugene Adam Benard. A very rare roll. This Prelude is one of
Wagner's most beautiful compositions. This roll was recorded in 1905 at the height of the romantic era
and plays superbly today. ($13.50)
C-6135 Christmas Carols played by David Ashton. Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night, It Came Upon the
Midnight Clear, and Joy to the World. ($11.00)
Y-75303 DeSylva, Brown, & Henderson Good News Selections played by Johnny Johnson. Nice jazz
arrangement of this medley from the Broadway hit Good News. ($13.50)
Y-75553 Coots Love Letters in the Sand played by Ralph Addison (Frank Milne). Great arrangement of this
1931 hit. Another favorite of ours. ($11.00)

..P'I

AMPICO MUSIC
65043 Bach-Uszt Prelude and Fugue A minor suite 1 n01 played by E. Robert Schmitz. Excellent interpretation
of this Bach Suite. A long roll. ($16.00)
58526 Chabrier-Copeland Espana played by George Copeland. An expansive and delightful transcription of
Chabrier's orchestral showpiece. ($13.50)
68001 Chopin Etudes op10 n011 & op25 n09 played by Josef Lhevinne. Accurately recorded roll of these
musical Etudes. In our opinion, Lhevinne is one of the finest Ampico artists. Roll has B coding. ($11.00)
63311 Chopin Waltz Brilliant op34 n03 played by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Another wonderful Rachmaninoff
recording. Roll has B coding. ($11.00)
62143 Gounod-Loth Waltz Themes from Faust played by L. Leslie Loth. A full arrangement by Loth, but not
the Liszt transcription. ($15.00)
62441 Rachmaninoff Serenade op3 n05 B flat minor played by the Composer. The early creative genius of
Rachmaninoff is displayed by this moving composition. It is expertly captured on the Ampico. ($12.00)
70423 & 70433 Wagner-Uszt Tannhauser Overture A two roll set played by Benno Moiseiwitsch. Brilliant and
technically accurate recording of Wagner's great overture-highly recommended. These two large rolls
have B coding. ($30.00)
2533 Romberg The Desert Song played by Edgar Fairchild. A ballad arrangement, superbly played by
Fairchild. This roll is coded for B Ampico. ($12.50)
207331 Rapee-Axt Ned Waybum's Original Charleston played by Adam Carroll. Includes four hot tunes from the
1920's: The Original Charleston; Sweet Georgia Brown; Yes Sir, That's My Baby; and I'm Gonna
Charleston Back to Charleston. ($12.00)
208211 Gershwin Clap Yo' Hands played by Frank Black. Well played Gershwin tune from the hit musical
Oh, Kay. ($11.00)
214531 Arlen Stormy Weather played by Phil Ohman. Hard to find standard splendidly played by Ohman.
Roll has B coding. ($11.50)

222

~.

223

ARTISTS' CHOICE MUSIC ROLLS

515 Scott Street

Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3736

!--.

WELTE,MIGNON SELECTIONS
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF PIANO CONCERTO
#2, Op.18 PRIMO ONLY-3 ROLL SET plb Sylvan
Levin. Impeccably played first (primo) piano part
ONLY. Use this when you have the neighborhood
orchestra over or accompany the soloist yourself on
your second piano! A RARE SET that deserves preser$50.00 set
vation. C6613, C6634, C6635. .
6961,SERENADE, Op. 28 by Howard Brockway plb
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler. A delightful selection! Mr.
Brockway was an important American composer and one
of AMPICO's Leading Artists. This beautiful Serenade is
his ONLY composition on music roll. .
$10.00
C1460CAPRICCIO by Scarlatti-Tausig p/b Fannie
Bloomfield Zeisler. The feather-stitching fingerwork in
this transcription is super! Tausig, who was Liszt's
best pupil, transcribed this piece for piano. Great
$10.00
encore!
C7007,SPINNING GIRLS AT CARANTEC, No.5 by
Rhene-Baton, plb Marguerite Volavy. The spinning
wheels will have you spinning along with your pump!
Busy hands are happy hands!
$10.00
D906,TOCCATA (Study on the third movement from the
Egyptian Concerto)F maj, Op.lll, No.6 by SaintSaens, plb Germaine Schnitzer. This showcase number from the Molly Yeckley collection was the roll she
used to demonstrate her Baldwin Welte-Mignon. If
you never had the opportunity to watch a piano
$10.00
"jump", well this is it!
F297,CAPRICE BURLESQUE Op.3, plb composer
Ossip Gabrilowitsch. This record (like Olga
Samaroff's on Ampico) utilizes just about every
dynamic range and ability of the reproducing piano.
$14.00
Great Russian tone poem. .
07792,ETUDE IN G MINOR, Op. 64 by Moritz
Moszkowski plb Bendetson Netzorg. Music of great
beauty with an appeal for the novice and artist. . $10.00
07773,ESPANA WALTZ by Waldteufel p/b Julian
Rodney. This is still a big Pops concert favorite! Hot
Diggity, Dog Diggity, Boom etc. in case you weren't
sure of where the theme was heard before. .. $10.00
B7212,DANCING MEDLEY NO.3 plb M.J. Lozcalzo.
Brown Eyes Why Are You Blue, You Told Me To Go,
Bam Bam Bammy Shore, My Sweetie Turned Me
Down. Rare and great popular dance medley with
$12.00
superior playing!
B7234,CHARLESTON MEDLEY plb Vee Lawnhurst.
I'm Gonna Charleston Back To Charleston,
Charlestonette. Recut in 1989 this is so snappy
I thought it needed to be available again. Vee
$10.00
Lawnhurst...need I say more?
224

Y75369, "PRESENT ARMS" SELECTION (Rodgers &

Hart) plb Henry Kiselik. Do I Hear You Saying, Blue
Ocean Blues, You Took Advantage of Me, Crazy Elbows.
Rodgers and Hart hits are still cooking today! . $12.00
Y75324,THE SONG IS ENDED (Ballad) Irving Berlin,
plb Vee Lawnhurst. Usually played as a fox trot on
roll, this Ballad will have you pining for lost love.
$10.00
BEAUTIFUllY PLAYED. .
Y75328,I FELL HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE plb
Johnny Johnson. ANY rolls played by Johnny
Johnson are sure to be a Hot Hit with guests. $10.00
Y75242,THE KINKAJOU ("Rio Rita") p/b Harry
Perella. HOTTEST/SNAPPIEST version on any
$10.00
roll.
Y75302,JUST A MEMORY (Ballad w. fox trot chorus)
plb Ford Gray. Talk about interpretation, the Ford
Gray records are dynamite! Who was Ford Gray, any
clues?
$12.00
Y7374,LET'S TALK ABOUT MY SWEETIE plb
Ralph Reichenthal. Better known as Ralph
RAINGER, the Reichenthal records all tend to have a
$10.00
"hotter" tone than his Rainger ones

-~

Y75421,A LOVE TALE OF ALSACE LORRAINE

plb Holbrook King. Ah the remanants of World War
One Love...as a fox trot. A very popular number of
the time well played
$10.00
Y7478,YA GOTTA KNOW HOW TO LOVE
(Charleston) plb Jack Wehrlen. If you saw "Pennies
From Heaven", then you know this RED HOT
CHARLESTON. Whew!
$10.00
Y75319,IT WAS ONLY A SUN SHOWER plb Sanford
MacGregor. Another great fox trot with that
BROWN BOX DRIVE that we love. . ..... $10.00
Y6361,AGGRAVATIN' PAPA plb Howard Lutter. This
1922 number is the earliest pop record on the list but
was specially asked for so here it is! Early style jazz
playing is what this roll is all about plus, the whole
title is, "Aggravatin' Papa, don't you try to two time
me!"
$10.00

Telephone: 419,626,1903
Fax: 419,624,9454

USA SHIPPING
$4.50 for first one or two rolls,
$.50 for each thereafter.

FOREIGN SHIPPING
$6.00, balance due sent with order.

'ii

THE

MUSIC TRADE

REVIE\N

.'

HARDMAN, PECK & COMPANY

M(J.Jfu/tUlllr"~

The HARDMAN Grand Piano

The I'arlor Omnd. Tho JlAby OrAnd.
Tho Small GrAnd

0/

The HARD'MAN Upri~hl Piano

Th. HARDMAN Aulolone

. ..

The Pertoct rJAycr rlano

Mndc in three l'lixce nndl\ ynrJcty

.
oC Arlll'ltic CR8C8

ll/
The HENSEL Piano

OwninrnM C"""~/""'r E. G. Hnrr;,,.'illllr Cf1., hO,I. J873, 'IlnA~n

The HARRINGTON Piano

Supremo

amOhll:'

and

Dux!cralcly priced !nslrumcn13

~rU:J ni,,,, t11,n,;nrantl (tmJr,lIi"r

An nllmlrnble illslmntcnl
"., A"(olff1f'

e,., Ilr(llul tif

At R

prJco 1\11

CAll Afford

"
Th. AUTOTONE
Tho only Player-Pinnl') of rcputnlion "mnclo througuoul .. Playor,t as
well 09 "Pinno" by Pin no mnkers of n("knowledged rcpuLn.lion. Tho
Aulolonchns only two DRsie Pinno9.1.hc Hnrdman Rnd tho Hnrrinp:ton.

433 Fifth Avenue, New York

Made on Honor and

Sold on Merit

Founded IH12

OO~

jjV'U.

10061007 Republic Building, ChicaliO. III.

BRINKERHOFF
The Piano Honestly Made
Honestly Advertised,
Honestly Sold.'
BRINKERHOFF PIANO
209 Soul!> SIal. SI.,

COMPANY
ChicallO

WJnI If;.... nn Havein Boston

Been Manufactured
o. D. WEAVER &: CO.
since 1837

1J~~ ~

A M MC PHAIL PIANO CO

HALLET
. D AV I S

Publl.hon 01

GllNERAL OFFICES. 120 BOYLSTON sT

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

PIANOS

WEAVER'S NEW METIOD OF INSTROCTlON

FOR BOTH PIANO AND REED ORGAN
g~~ ,~~~~:. ;~:~~ IJ~\rrUuCc\a:r8. ~~~dlnl~r.~t

J;:::

Tho boat and mo.t popular loatrue'ou on the market

Sample copies will prove above aU.tament.

rlANO STOOLS, CIAIIS. IlNCBIS.

rlANO SCAln AND COVIIS

n"tl

Endorsed by Leading Artists for more than Half.a Century' BOSTON, MASS.

JBecher JBros.

U.I

nl.c

ani

UUINa

.aCBIIII

cAI'IQn

Wrlto lor Catalor.

11 SDalb Wabub Ave.

CHICAGO, IL L

Factory and
Wareroom.:
767-769
10th Ave.,
NEW YORK.,

filgb 6radt Pianos and Playtr Pia.os .

KINDLER I,COLLINS ~tSNTJ~N~4~~N~1~,i~~:A~~~

WARDE PIANO co .
.

. '

Tel. 7487 BrYant

"'11.01\1

40.1:. 404 and 408 We.' 14th &L. Ne. York

s-,I Ya". oe .... Mar.....

LEUR

Con .-oillductl SoUdled

~~~~e

PIANOS

Charming- Tone, Quality

MILTON PIANO CO.

Il. II Kaywo. PrOildool
12tb A.....nd Weal 551h Streel

Hr." YOKI..

EXQUISITE CASES OF ORIGINAL DESIGN

R. S. HOWARD CO.

Superior Workmanlhip
, Uled and Endorsed

PIANOS and INTERIOR PLAYER -PIANOS

H. LEHR& CO., Easton, Pa.

Great Piano Values

PIANO
PI.,.,..

PRESCOTT

GILBERT

1808.. 1812.
FAll RIVlR,

.
C,.nda, Upright.,
FAll RIVlR,
' .

"Non. BeU.r An, Prioe."

MASS.

MANUFACTURER3 OF

81' leadiq eonacnalo,io. of muaic., whole te.ti~

mODial. are pz:1nted in cataJoiue

CO.
MAIl.

DI . ,

T' ease. Cote.Pia!1!> ~g.Co., F~L"~' Fall River, Mass.

Cote' PJanOS
Tbey are mad" rlllbt and wid rli bl

QUALITY
Noted for 1CHARACTER
INDIVIDUALITY,
Nner belore hu the .same quality,
character

.oUere<!

BOWEN HENDERSON

PIANOS

GRANDS
" ONLY

Bowen-Henderson Piano Co., Fall River, Mass.

CORl

PIANOCOa, ' Fall River,' Mass.

Manufacturers of uprights only

--~~----~-~

"

BR~~u~~~:v:ru~~~,~nJY CO/II ~(R~!~:!MJ~lr,J" 11!~~ CO.

fOT

and

indiTidulllity

been

medium price.

EVERY INSTRUMOO SHIPPED ON APPROVAL

Write for our new calalogue

1.0111..

ZDD rlnu AVElIOE

KEW TORI

raclerl..
In.lu
Ul~
HEW TORI CITY

w.

nTt

n.

UI~ STilEET
SKOOUn

THE

MUSIC TRADE

REVIEVV

THE COMSTOCK, CHENEY te CO.,

IVORYTON,CONN.

===== MANUFACTURERS =====::=

Plano-forte Ivory Keys9 Actions and HaITlITlers.

Ivory and COITlposltion Covered Organ Keys
Whole.ale Onl h

E.'abU.h..d 1860

Ramsey S

'ALL STEEL TRAP WORK

Simple. Silont, Strong

HENRY HAAS &SON

1907-1911 Park Av.... N.. w York
MAKERS

Piano & Piano Player Hardware General Snppliel

Conllnuous Hlntes, Bearlne Bars, Pedals. Caslers

CHAS. RAMIEY CO.

The Homer D. Bronson Co.

MnnllfActnre nnd Sell Direct

We are ae. loaated at air ne. futory, 118caton, I. Y.

STRA UCH BROS.

Piano Actions, Keys and Hammers

~~~Nt?PR1~N~RE

22,24,26,28,30 TENTII AVENUE,

PIANO HINGES
D J~ S K HAN G H R S
FRONT FRAMJ> CATCHES
K N I F J~. H I N G .E S
I:lUTTS ond SPJ~CrALTIES
WRITE

FOR

WASLE PIANO ACTIONS

An Doted for their elasticity, relpoDlinneli and t1l1lability. They salilfy in all case I

WASLE

QUOTATIONS

NEW YORK

\.bL

CO .
~

Bra_n'. Place and

.south.rn Boul.....rd

...
~

N ew Y orJ).
1..-

THE HOMER D. BRONSON CO.

DRACON FALLS. CONN.

C.

E.KOPRIWA CO.

F.

&

COMPANY

137 EAST 13th STREET, NEW YORK

SUPPLIERS OF IDGH GRADE COMMODITIES TO THE PIANO TRADE

SOLE AGENTS FOR

ARTISTIC WOOD
CARVERS

AN KSSItNTlAL NECII-SSITY IN TilE MANUFACTURIt OF A STRlCTLY F'lR.llT CLAIS INSTRUMENT

MANUt'ACTURERS OF

IILACK. RED AND GREEN LABBL-IDGHUT APPRO\OlLD QUALITY AND TENSILK STRENGTH

Fine Plano Trusses,

Pilasters, Panels,
Etc.
Original dcsif.:lIs

cd

if

dcsircd.

furnis.h-

A m III c

fficilitics-PrOlll!'l1 Service:.

2220-24 WardStnet
(Near Clyboum A'9~.)

CHICAGO

KLINKES' CELEBRATED DIAMOND BRAND TUNING PINS

WAGENER'S IMPORTED MUSIC WIRE
ALLEN'S PATENT BALL BEARING CASTERS-Single and Double Wheel
POSSUSING DlSTlNCTlVIt FltATUllIS WIDCH HAVE STAMrItD THItM A& TH1t BILST

FREDERICK ENGELHARDT & SONS

(Suooeseora ~a:~t;a:t~~~e~ar~~ PIAN0
ACTIONS
SALESROOMS: 14-16 East 33d Street, NEW YORK CITY
'aotorloe, at. oIohne"lllo. III. Y., on III. Y. O. R. R.
E bIl.....l 1853

GRUBB &: KOSEGARTEN BROS.

MANUFACTURERS OF

HIGH GRADE

PIANO-FORTE ACTIONS
NASSAU,

GOEPEL

IENSSRLAEll COUNTY.

N. Y.

WHITE. SON COMPANY

ORGAN AND PLAYERPIANO LEATHERS
530-'40 At1anUo Av.nue. Boatoa. M

SYLVESTER TOWER CO.

~~OI~~:.AbOV'

MANUFACTURERS OF

Grand and Upright Piano -forte Actions

ALSO PIANO-"( RrE AND ORGAN KEYS

~~::~IA~~WF'~:~~:':~:x'~~:;~~~d,.n4

131 to 147 Broadway, Cambridgeport, Mass.

=======ESTABLISHED FORTY FIVE YEARS=======

F. RAMACCIOTTI,

276278280

Nlnt~lt~e;~;K~ear 26th Street.

Piano Bass Strings and Panels.

TOE "RAMACCIOTTI" WARES CORRESPOND TO TOE "STERLING" MA.RK OF SILVER.

Grand Rapids Piano Case Co., Ltd.

=====GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.=====
QUALITY AND PROMPT SHIPMENTS CUARANTEED

The moat modern

and complete exclusive CHae factory In
the world.