Pneumatic
player pianos are the type that are primarily operated by air. Traditionally, you
pump these pianos to get them to play a paper "scroll", or roll as they're commonly called.
Many of these players are becoming difficult to play or not playable at all any more because
the leather and rubber in them are becoming leaky, or inflexable, or both. A total rebuild of
these mechanisms is becoming more and more expensive, and therefore, exceeding the value
of the instrument. In my market area, the paper based player piano is not a favorable item
to have on a dealer's sales floor because they aren't selling. This destroys their value and
so rebuilding them is fast becoming a trend of the past. Rebuilders were never in abundance
to begin with, and now, because of the market trend, they're dropping out of the player
rebuild business and moving on to more lucretive areas of their trade. In my case, I'm
becoming more and more involved with electro-mechanical pianos, the player piano of the
the '90's and beyond.
These old player pianos were characteristically well made pianos that had a great tone and nice cabinets. To remove the player action and sell the piano as a straight piano has proven to be a not so favorable venture by most dealers. The buying public doesn't want a piano that had something removed to make it sell better.
One nice thing you could do with an ex-player, that I haven't seen done yet, is remove the sliding doors for the spoolbox and use the resulting area for a picture frame. Something in a wood inlay would look really nice there.
There are some rebuilders out there still, and some enthusiasts that refuse to let these musical monsters go off into oblivion. There's quite a collection of them on the internet on a list server called rolls@foxtail.com. You can join the list, (there's no fee or charge of any kind) and start receiving e-mail from those who post to the entire list by accessing their site (MMD) and following their instructions.
Tempola Music Rolls has a nice website you might like to visit.
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You can email me at larryf@pacifier.com
