Re: 990913 MMDigest)

In-Reply-To: <199909141706.KAA18827@cohost.foxtail.com>
Damon Atchison was given some 65-note rolls and says:

> I have heard another MMDer refer to them as being
> good for wallpaper.  I have never seen a 65-note player piano and I've
> seen almost everything roll-operated except an Art-Echo or Apollo.
>
> Are these rolls worth anything to collectors?  As for the 7 I have now,
> I will just keep them in the house until I'm old and gray.

There's a fairly treacly market for them in England, where many hundreds
of 65-note uprights survived right through to the 1960s. I bought one
such for =L=25 in 1968, a "British" (actually German Gotha) Steck dated
1912, and sold it again in 1970 for the same amount after difficulties
with my stepmother. (It hadn't been tuned for 10 years, or restored, and
was perfect, if you like Steck uprights). Now they mostly turn up gutted.
I even had to recommend someone to gut one, a fossilized 1906 Steck so
early it didn't have Metrostyle but did have Themodist. It was a super
piano and she wanted to keep it, and I couldn't justify spending several
hundred on rebuilding what must have been a rare prototype player action,
when she wasn't interested and only someone like me would ever start to
want such a thing.

However, 65-note pushups are still around here and you can pick them up
at house auctions, rarely able to play at all. The going rate is about
=L=140 for them in this state, but if they can pick out a tune antique
dealers think they're incredibly valuable and sulk for years as they
discover this is not so. Once an enthusiast gets hold of one, then you
can dispose of rolls ! Try an ad in the Player Piano Group Bulletin -
editor Julian Dyer is at:
    jrd@ngcscd.demon.co.uk.geentroep  [ drop .geentroep to reply ]
(if his server is working).

For some reason, there are a good few 65-note pushups in Australia,
identical to the ones that turn up here, but they've all had the big
Steck upright air motors put in them rather than the rather weeny
original ones. I'm almost certain this is because the smaller valve
slides disliked the low humidity. (I've had three different 65-note
pushups and they all disliked dry weather.) The rolls have usually all
been lost, so there's more of a demand there. When Steve Cox of Laguna
Rolls started making 65-note recuts around 1978, he had a big takeup in
Oz.

So no, they're not valuable, but then they're not worthless either. I've
just bought a box of 20 65-note song rolls from Adam Ramet for a fair sum
- they were obviously bought as a lot new in the 1920s, and are a kind of
time capsule. But it helps that I have something to play them on !

Dan Wilson, London