When I consider how much abuse a coin operated machine takes in a public
location, I marvel at how many original coin operated pianos and nicks
still exist.  Consider photoplayers for instance.  They were expected to
go from early morning until late at night... continuously.  Most literally
beat themselves to pieces.  And lets not forget the brothels, the machines
never stopped.

I placed my first "home made" nick on location in 1972.  In less than two
months it was a wreck.  I brought it back to the shop and tried to figure
out where I had gone wrong.  The first flaw was something as simple as the
coin mechanism itself.  The whole idea is to make money, and the entry to
the machine is, obviously, where it all starts.  I had used a drop chute
made by Monarch Tool and Die.  It was a stamped metal affair with the coin
return in the form of a cup that screwed to the cabinet under the mech.
Almost anything would work... it was just  not selective about what round
object the size of a quarter it accepted.  The was no magnet to reject
slugs.  First mistake.

Next was the roll frame.  I had used a reproduction of the Coinola roll
frame.  Any of you who have owned an original Operators Piano Company
product, know that a very high vacuum is needed to close and LOCK the
rewind pneumatic.  Many times the machine sits there after the last tune
oscillating between the final chord and the rewind perf.  Second mistake.

Next, I had made my own "trap" mechanisms.  They worked and sounded, I
thought, just wonderful in the shop.  But in a busy location the piano can
go hours without stopping and I had not given it the acid test in the
shop... too anxious to count all those quarters.  Third mistake.

The whole machine was gutted and I started over.  About that time a
Nelson-Wiggin Style 6 came in the shop.  I was amazed at how rugged they
were built.  Everything was made of maple, and it was solid.  As we
disassembled the NW, I made drawings of everything.  Fortunately the
original tubing was intact.  The "G" roll and the "4X" as you know only
have that one hole for the snare drum, and Seeburg used a switcher to turn
other instruments on and off... usually using the soft pedal to make the
switch.

Nelson-Wiggin went one step further.  They used TWO switchers for that
single hole.  One was activated by the soft pedal, the other by the
xylophone on-off perf.  That seemed like a good idea to me.  We made five
trap shelves in the cabinet mill, exactly like the NW.  When the original
Nelson-Wiggin got back together, I heard things coming out of 4X rolls
that I had never heard before.  I figured I was on the right track.

Next we decided that the coin slide like those used in coin laundrys would
be the hardest for people to cheat.  Monach makes a heavy duty slide for
pool tables, and we chose that one.  It was to prove itself completely
reliable over the next fourteen years.  There is a way to jam them, but
very few people know how, so we only had a few calls on them.  My "route"
covered a hundred mile radius around San Antonio, and driving a hundred
miles round trip to unjam a coin mech was really a pain.

The roll frames proved more of a challenge.  I was still stuck on the
Coinola.  We decided to build our own, using one half of a duplex
Reproducco roll frame as a guide.  We built five, including the castings
for the gear boxes.  The only drawback was the fact that they had to have
a slow speed motor running them.  We used spare Ampico motors and regular
vacuum pumps from Player Piano Co.

The first machine was set in the busiest location I have ever been in.
More than a half million visitors a year.  Lots of loose change there!  It
worked.  Outside of a few minor problems with the coin accumulator mech,
everything worked the first season.  I changed the rolls every week.   We
scrapped the accumulator, after that it was  one quarter, one play.

In the course of that first year, I had plenty of time to stand around and
watch people's reaction to the piano.  We used clear plastic in all the
openings so you could see it all... only the coin chute was covered... and
we put a square of thin foam in the bottom of the Western Electric style
coin boxes we had the sheet metal firm down the street copy for us.  Why
the foam?  Well, one day Jimmy Johnson, founder of Western Equipment and
Supply Company came over to the shop.  Jimmy held the patent on the
concept of the "free" game, and 87 other patents on coin operated
machines... and it had made him a wealthy man.  When I demonstrated the
new nick to him, as the quarter hit that sheet metal box with a
resounding clunk, he muttered, "Here I am, come get me."  I understood
just what he was talking about.  We never set another nick without that
square of foam.

People WATCH the machine... and it is my opinion that they do not really
listen to the music.  The piano is in a big arcade, hundreds of people
milling around and someone drops a quarter in the piano.  There is a rush
as people crowd around to watch.  They could care less what the song
is... they just love to watch all those things moving inside the machine.
The longest I ever kept a roll on the machine after that was four years.
The only reason I changed it was because a mouse decided that he liked
"Bye, Bye Blackbird" better than I did.

At one time we had ten pianos on location.  The Nelson Wiggin stuff held
up, and so did the Coinola roll frames.  We later converted most all of
them to the well engineered roll frames that Noble Stidham at Mechanical
Systems manufactured for years, and the ones Durrell was making in the
early eighties.

They are all gone now.  One by one they got sold as we lost the locations.
I only have a few Poloroids of all those machines, and I am going to post
some of them on my web site... poor quality... but that is all that is
left.

I take care of an original Western Electric that was their version of the
KT Special.  It is getting ready for its re-re-re-rebuild.  And it will
need yet another new set of butts and whippens... by the way, do they
make tuning pins larger than a size 6?

Today when I see what is being produced for public locations, I just
stare.  I would like to talk to someone who actually puts one out in
public and ask them if they have any problems.  Wanna know something?...
almost any round object the size of a quarter will work in them!

Ed Gaida