Hi, everyone...

I am pleased to share with you that I received my Four-Way Forsetzer
today, my "Ampi-Art-Mignon" (or is it a Duo-Co-Welte??) -- the mechanical
wonder built by Jim Miller in 1972 for Joe Tushinsky and just restored
magnificently by Ron Sanchez of The Player Shop in Monrovia, CA.

This wonderful machine plays Ampico, Duo-Art, and Welte rolls -- both
Welte-Mignon Licensee and Welte Red Rolls -- the larger pre-WWI German scale
units.  And it plays them all with fascinating accuracy and excellent
dynamics.  It is a vorsetzer, a push-up player,  that I use in combination
with a 6'7" Yamaha Disklavier grand, and these two together allow me to
transfer rolls to floppy disc, in addition to being able to enjoy virtually
all of the best of reproducing player piano music in original roll form on
an outstanding piano.

The act of pushing this unit up to my piano today concluded an
eight-and-a-half-month effort which started the moment I purchased the
vorsetzer at auction back in February this year.  The normal gestation
period for humans I suppose, and possibly short for restoring unique
mechanical musical instruments!!  The vorsetzer was something I had heard
about for years and made a number of calls around to determine its
whereabouts.  So you can imagine the skipped heartbeats when I found out
that it was coming up at auction just a few miles from my house -- and then
I was able to BUY the thing and I did!!  When I got it, it looked
discouragingly dumpy, dingy, and neglected.  But today it's looks fine and
sounds great and  I'm very excited, to say the least, and the end result is
outstanding.

As the Gershwins said, "Who Could Ask For Anything More?"

Best regards,

Tom