This comes under the heading of "I brought this on myself"...but I do not
care.  If I can save some representative piece of the history of automatic
music...I am happy to do so.

Nothing I have posted, (so far) has brought as much email as that Knabe
grand in Mexico.  Here is ALL that I know about it...and I am going to tell
you where it is...because they want to sell it.

First, however, some general comments about Mexico City, today...that is as
of August 20, 1997, the last time I was there. The sleepy city I knew in
the fifties and sixties is gone...forever.  MC is crowded (est. pop.  21
million!), polluted and also crime ridden.  Those last two words were
difficult to write, but it is the truth.  Surface transportation in Mexico
City is SLOW...and now the taxis charge you by time as well as distance.
In August when I got out of the airport and jumped into a cab, he did not
know the location of where I wanted to go!  It was not far from the
American Embassy, and any six year old school boy or girl in Mexico knows
where the "Angelito" or angel monument in the middle of the Reforma is.  I
had to tell him how to get there, and I speak Spanish.  This last trip I
experienced "grid lock" first hand as I sat in a private automobile on the
Periferico for four and a half hours because of an accident.  The entire
southern half of the city ground to a halt...and I mean halt!

Despite all of this, it still is a beautiful city, but eroding because of
sheer masses of humanity.  I now limit my travel in the city to the Metro
and walking.  I told my friends there, that if they wanted to meet for a
meal or coffee...to make it near a Metro station...or forget it.  The
Metro, by the way, is truly one of the wonders of modern mass transit.
There are 10 lines and by the time you read this number 11 will probably
have opened.  It is clean, no trash, no graffatti, just clean.  The
motormen (drivers for our British friends) wear blazers with the Metro logo
patch on the left breast pocket.  There is NO pushing or shoving, ala New
York City...and the trains run every 50 seconds...all day long.  You can
almost set your watch by them.  It is a rubber tired system just like Paris
(the French built the first three lines) and easy to use.  Just try NOT to
ride after six o'clock in the evening unless you want to see what crowds
are REALLY like.

If you go, take all the precautions you would in any large city.  I carry
my cameras in an old cloth shopping bag, put my wallet in the top of my
cowboy boots and watch myself.  You would be advised to do the same.

I digress...back to the musical instruments.  Prices of antiques in
Mexico...and I mean real antiques...not reproductions, are twice to THREE
TIMES what you would expect to pay here.  The days of bargains are
over...and we gringos taught them that!  That Welte orchestrion that you
see on my web site.  When I first saw it, it had a MATE, a bigger model
sitting across the room from it...with a matching roll cabinet yet.  It is
now in the states in a collection.  Its little "brother" is still there.  I
know what the buyer in the US paid for the big one, I just cannot tell you.
 The Vargas family are friends and they swore me to secrecy.  Mexico City
has some posh auction houses...like Christies and Southebys.   A trip
though their showrooms was an eye opener.  The prices would stagger you!

Now...what I originally started to tell you...about that Knabe.  It is
owned by the Petrof dealers in Mexico City, Pianos y Organos.  Here is the
whole bit of information, and Manual Vargas is gonna kill me the next time
he comes to San Antonio.

        Pianos y Organos
        Periferico 48  Esq. General Mendez
        Col. Daniel Garza
        Mexico, D.F.   C.P. 11840
        Tel:  272 75 72
        Fax: 273 47 77

HINT... HINT... HINT... 

Fax them first.  The secretaries are gracious and loving... but their
knowledge of English is limited.  Manual and his son, Manual, both speak
English, the elder of the two was educated in Illinois!  They are warm and
gracious as you will find most Mexicans are... but they are business men
and not collectors or hobbiests.

The barrel organ picture on my page was taken  last August also.  There are
about 50 barrel organs left in Mexico City or so I am told.  There are two
syndicates or unions that own them and rent them out to the guys to ply the
streets.  They are generally not a friendly lot... do not speak English, and
act like they are ticked off at the world.  Approach at your own risk... I
could get nothing out of them.

As for duty on that grand... customs will use the heading "American goods
returning"  as long as there is SOMETHING on the piano to say it was made
in the US.  There should be no duty... but then again I am not an authority
on United States custom laws, so get yourself a GOOD forwarding agent to
handle it for you.  And remember... YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.

Ed