Hi Everybody;  I've just been to a computer workshop in the North Island
(i.e. the rest of Australia) and managed to fit in a visit to Denis Condon's
place in Sydney.  My brother-in-law was very kindly driving me around so the
two of us fronted up at Ampico Towers in NewTown and received Denis' tour of
the establishment.  Things have changed since I was there last.  In the huge
sitting room where three reproducing grands used to sit there are now only
two grands, but they are both new Yamahas.  Both had home-made push-ups
sitting in front of them.  One pushup plays Ampicos and one plays Duo-Arts.
The larger of the two Yamahas is a monster and is a $58000 Disklavier.  It's
the piano most of the Condon Collection rolls were recorded on.  Denis said
he used these pianos rather than original reproducing pianos so that people
could hear what the rolls sound like on a new piano.  These days he records
the rolls on the Disklavier when he plays them and asked me if I would like
to hear one.  I chose the Ampico number "The Continental" played by Arden
and Carroll, because I've heard it a few times on various Ampico players and
think that it's one of the best Ampico popular rolls ever recorded.  I
thought the Disklavier played it very well.

I asked Denis how sales of the Condon Collection were going and he said that
they had gone well but that he felt he had been given a very raw deal by the
record companies.  Unfortunately  this topic of conversation came up right
at the end of our visit and there wasn't time to pursue it further.  So I
don't have any new advice to people wishing to purchase any of the CDs.

There were other players in Denis' sitting room.  He has a green Welte
pushup that has been modified to play Licensee rolls too.  This was pushed
up to a red Welte Steinway upright!  Next to it was a red Welte keyboardless
Steinway upright in a magnificent case.  When it's all closed up one would
never guess that it is a piano.

In a downstairs room Denis has an upright Ronisch player with a Triphonola
action in it and out in his workshop is an as yet untouched Art-Echo upright.

His roll room leaves one feeling rather dizzy. He has about 8000 reproducing
rolls and I was intrigued to see that he mixes all the systems together,
arranging the rolls by composer only.  I guess that makes sense when you can
play any of the major systems in the same room.

He began collecting Ampico rolls in the late '40s when his father bought an
Ampico player.  He would buzz round various piano dealers and second-hand
stores on his Vespa motor scooter picking up Ampico rolls for 6d (5c) or
maybe 1/- (10c) at the classier stores.  Since the Vespa's carrying capacity
was only about 8 rolls he had to make a lot of trips.   Two or three years
later he acquired a Duo-Art player.  It had only a couple of rolls with it
but within a week he had 400!  He just went back to the same stores and
started collecting all those rolls in brown boxes that had been no use on
the Ampico.

When I asked Denis if he had many rolls for the Art-Echo player still out in
the shed, he said he had about 400.

After we left Denis' place, feeling stunned as usual (by music not booze),
my brother-in-law put me on the train for Maitland where I stayed for a
night with another player piano enthusiast called Brian Duke.  Brian is a
retired cellist from the Sydney Symphony and with his partner has restored
an 1850's mansion and stuffed it full of antique furniture and china.  He
has three reproducing pianos but his roll collection isn't anything like
Denis', it's merely very large.  Most of it is packed away at present, due
to ongoing house renovations but Brian did dig out a couple of really early
white Welte rolls. These apparently were sold in the U.S. before the
Licensee system got going properly and have slightly different coding.  They
have very short leaders made of a shiny black material - could it be
buckram?  He found one batch of these rolls years ago and has never seen any
since.

I then spent a couple of nights with my son's future in-laws, who happen to
live in Maitland too.  After a day spent touring and sampling the wine
growing district of the Hunter Valley, (20 minutes up the road), we returned
to their home where they mentioned that their little upright piano had
troubles.

In 1955, Maitland suffered a disastrous flood.  This upright did not escape
and spent a couple of days partially immersed in floodwater.  However only
the bottom 18" or so got wet and as soon as the floodwaters went down a
local piano tuner took the case apart and dried everything out.  There are
certainly no signs that the case is damaged.  About eight years ago however,
a new piano tuner told them that a screw had rusted though in the action and
that it could never be fixed.  They accepted his verdict and noone has
touched the piano since.

I thought the trouble would be in the very bottom of the piano so I looked
first at the lower terminations of the strings.  It's true that there was
rust on some of the bridge pins (if that's what they are called) but it
wasn't bad and none were anywhere near rusted through.  So I took the action
out and found where the trouble really is. In trying to remove the
treblemost damper unit, the tuner had sheared off the head of the woodscrew
securing it to the horizontal rail at the back of the action to which all
the damper units are attached.  (I hope that shambling great sentence makes
sense.)

I think the tuner decided to bail out before he did any more damage.
Fortunately he taped the loose damper to the back of the hammer rest rail so
nothing has been lost.

I find it hard to belive that this problem cannot be fixed.  The screw can't
have been reduced totally to rust because, eight years later, shiny metal is
still visible at the top of the stump.  Doubtless other screws are tightly
embedded in the wood too, and would require careful removal.

The piano does have one other noticeable problem that may date from its
sojourn in the floodwaters.  Several of the treble hammers have felt that
has sprung away from the wooden core on the bottom side.  It's still
attached at the top so the damage wasn't evident until I removed the action.

I suppose that means a new set of hammmers?

This is only a little piano and not one of the well-known makes.  But the
family treasures it and I don't think they were given very good advice.  Do
MMDers have any comments?

Was the computer workshop any good?  Yes, it was not too bad.

All the best from a rather chilly Tasmania.  John Phillips.