When I went to school in 1950s our school had an Ampico!  It was a
Fischer upright. I had an interest in player pianos, and had a Cable
Nelson (Simplex) at home that I had rebuilt.  I spotted the piano
during gym class, seeing its tracker bar partly showing as it sat in
the back of an open storage room off the gym.  At first, I thought
it was just a player piano, but it sparked my interest.

After much urging, and using the excuse that we needed an upright piano
as a prop in a play, I was able to persuade those in charge to move the
piano to the back of stage in the auditorium.  After school, when no
one was around, I secretly removed the front panels and started tinker-
ing with it.  I then learned that the mechanism was an Ampico, and the
motor was missing.

At that time, I had heard of the Ampico, and had a few Ampico rolls
mixed in with my small collection of 88-note rolls at home.  I soon
found a motor that could be substituted, at least temporarily.

I recall the first time I was able to get it to play.  It was late
afternoon, and most everyone had gone home.  The piano started playing,
loudly and echoed throughout the school.  Several teachers came running
to see who was playing the beautiful(?) music.  They were impressed
that I got it working, but none were too impressed with the piano
mechanism.

At that point of my life, I had never seen the inside of an Ampico.
I brought some Ampico rolls and played them.  The piano worked splend-
idly, or at least I thought so.  It was a bit loud, but none the less
it worked!

The piano was featured in a musical produced by the school drama
department.  The piano was set to go, and at the right moment, the
power was turned on, and it accompanied the finale: "I Want To Be
Happy"  It was quite the production and the students loved it.

Unfortunately, its use was short.  The teachers in charge, had little
interest in our efforts, and we (students) were requested to return
the piano to the storage room where the mechanism fell silent, never
to play again.  We were reminded not waste our time playing rolls on
"that old thing" or "tinkering with an obsolete piece of junk".

Sadly, in the remaining years, the piano received extremely hard use
with hand playing with various orchestras and bands.  Like most school
pianos, it eventually got very banged up with metal chairs stored on
it's case.  The principal of the school came to me one day, and said
if I wanted any of the mechanism, to remove it because the piano was to
be discarded.

I felt badly that no one seemed to care.  I carefully removed the
Ampico mechanism, took it home and kept it.  Twenty years later,
a friend of mine bought an Ampico minus most of its mechanism.
I was happy to donate the parts, and assisted  him to reconstruct
an excellent Ampico that is still in use today!

Bruce Clark