Just a few weeks ago I got a call from someone who had heard that
I was "in that player piano stuff", and was wondering if I would be
interested in a player piano that could be mine free as long as
I hauled it away.

So that you know that I live on a small island in the State of Hawaii,
(and yes, we are part of the USA), I am the only one to my knowledge
that has any form of mechanical music instruments or interest on this
particular island, and definitely the only owner of a player piano, or
so I thought for the last seven years that I have been living here.

I asked him what make of piano he had and the answer was "Oh, it's a
Duo-ark or something like that..."  I told him that I would be over in
a less than a wink.  I jumped in my jeep and sped the 10 miles or so
to this home with a "free" Duo-Art, unbelievable...

The home was palatial, no wonder they could afford a reproducing
piano, I reasoned.  The owners, "hoales", local slang for everybody not
born on the island, were moving back to "the mainland", as the owner
volunteered as he led me to an already empty room, which had been used
for storage.

There it stood, in all its glory, or obvious lack thereof.  It was a
small spinet with a case of apparently simulated wood. I sheepishly
mumbled, "This is it?"  The owner, without answering the obvious,
lifted the lid, and there -- blazing for all to see -- was stenciled
on the inside, with golden letters, "D U O - A R T".

Yes, it was a player piano of sorts, my guess from the sixties, with
a regular 88-note trackerbar; could have been a 84 or 86, for all
I know, system of unknown manufacture...  No, not a "free" DUO-ART
reproducer, stupid!.

Although still mine for the taking, I politely declined and uttered
something like,  "Donate it to the local college.  They are always
looking for free study pianos."

Question : Does anyone know which manufacturer had the distasteful
audacity to name this so-called piano after a well respected name of
a reproducing system?

Another lesson learned, but no doubt not the last one... sigh...

Albert de Boer