Danny ,,,its an Old antique..Plays by a paper roll...needs restoration...I thought It would give me some piddling time in old age....I was mistaken(once again)There are parts available online.
Yes sir,I am familiar with them,I refinished the wood on one for my brotherinlaw about 30 years ago,I believe it is still in his garage and to my knowledge he never reassembled it. They do look good when done right but take up a lot of room. HRP
Pianos are hard to get rid of anymore. Not many kids want to learn to play them now like they used too. We have a 1940's or 50's upright that my wife learned on as a kid, tried to sell it, no dice, even tried to give it away, nobody wants it. One of these days I'm going to scrap it, I figure the cast iron board should bring some money for scrap. The finish on the wood is crappy paint like they used to do to used ones to sell them. Amazed me that no one wanted it, even for free.....
I'm not talking about a regular OLD piano...Maybe some of the younger guys never heard of a "Player" \piano....This one has all the mechanicals in it that make it play from a special roll of paper, I also had one like BamaMav above had,,couldn't give it away Kids do not need to learn on this one,,just put a new roll on...one song per roll...and sit back and listen
I'd love to have a Player Piano! but... I dont have the room. I know of a fully functioning PP a few miles from our place. I had to walk away... My wife doesn't always support my interests( she puts up with alot!)... its still in the back of my mind tho.
When I was growing up, the folks bought a used piano for my sister to learn on. It was an old player piano, but the mechanism had been mostly taken out. There were still some odd springs, levers, buttons and brackets on it. It too had been painted over the original finish, a drab olive green color. I think the folks gave about $75 for it, delivered. Don't know what they got for it when they sold it, but it wasn't much.
My mom has a really lovely player piano that she got rebuilt a few years ago. Since then, she's gone on a binge collecting the music rolls. She's probably got several hundred songs. I wish I had a photo handy. It's beautiful piano, all in quarter-sawn oak.
Both myself and my younger sister have old upright player pianos. I have hundreds of rolls, if anyone is in need. I have the one my Dad bought when we were kids and mechanically refreshed - and I spent hours playing the countless old rolls. I just had it picked up from his old storage unit, and will be slowly going through it to make it work (and look halfway decent) for our house. My younger sister just got the one from my grandmother's house, which is now receiving some love to return to usable shape.
Player Piano would be pretty skookum. I inherited a baby grand (non player). I feel bad that it’s out in the shop but as stated- kids aren’t taking piano lessons anymore so they’ve become a liability rather than an asset. “Stock up now — before the hoarders get it all!”
Growing up my dad tuned pianos and always had whole and parts of pianos in our garage. Occasionally he had a player. I played pumping the air pedals and thinking about the air going thru the rolls and then a selected part of the 88 tubes going to the action (the mechanism part which makes the hammers hit the strings) to make the keys play and produce the music. We even had a pump organ that had long since went beyond repair. I myself got an upright player from a guy at work that had lead, yes lead, tubing in it. Combine that with a cast iron sound board it weighed a ton (at least seemed like it)!! That wound up left a couple of houses ago. An electronic keyboard replaced it and was a lot easier to move but the old piano was cool why we had it. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I grew up with one. I can still hear every note of “Tiger Rag” in my head... I loved that old piano. My cousin in New Hampshire has it now, and may soon donate or scrap it. It’s an old upright pneumatic player in need of restoring. PM me in the 1 in a million chance you live in New Hampshire and are looking for one.
If you want to see player pianos there is a museum near Reading, Pa. that has hundreds. The owner took an old B.F.Goodrich factory and converted it into a museum. Many of the pianos operate on motion sensors and play when you walk by. There are player guitars too, which I had never known existed.
We bought a player piano about 40 years ago and had some work done on it so it would play. Then we moved and we put it in the basement, where it has been hardly used in the last thirty years.
The Jalopy Journal
