I think I have said this before, but one should be very cautious when
buying barrel pianos.

We are probably the largest dealer in mechanical musical instruments in
the US, and we are regularly getting calls on barrel pianos, new, old,
and including the larger barrel orchestrions.  We rarely buy these
because they are extremely difficult to sell.

The value of a new small one is around $350-700 at best, the value of
the typical large standard type street barrel piano is in the $750-1250
range (we have had a really neat one for sale on our web site, with
drums, for quite some time now, I think we have recently reduced it to
around $1200).

Even the large and impressive and sometimes quite musical barrel
orchestrions are difficult to sell, but might bring $3000 unrestored
and perhaps $7000-$9000 restored, if you are patient.

Marty Roenigk
www.mechantiques.com
mroenigk@aol.com