Sadly, John Rutoskey's horror stories about deliberately destroying old
players are quite correct, but the player piano lover will sometimes go
to great lengths to rescue something.

There is a "respected" tuner/piano sales person in Sikeston, Missouri.
I visited her once to buy some understring felt to finish a restringing
job; I had run out of felt and didn't want to wait for it to arrive in
the mail.

The first thing I noticed was a nice old Steinway Duo-Art with the
action removed.  I said, "Oh, I didn't know you rebuilt players."  She
replied, "I don't, I am installing a PianoDisc in the Steinway".  I then
asked her where were the parts pulled out of the piano?  The reply came
back, "In the dumpster."

The restaurant next door, which shared the dumpster, had made rescuing
the Duo-Art stack and associated parts a very nasty and smelly job.  I
ruined my clothes, and passers-by thought I had lost my mind, sifting
through the decayed food to retrieve them.  It wasn't pleasant at all.
The Duo-Art mechanism eventually was sold to be installed in another
gutted piano, a Weber, I think.

Another local dealer had the nerve to offer a gutted Gulbransen for
$1,200.  I inspected the piano for a client who had a mechanism, but no
piano; the thing sounded awful.  Evidently the salesman didn't know I
was a piano technician, and he was really giving me a sales talk.  He was
still chatting away while I pulled the piano away from the wall -- the
soundboard was falling apart.

I asked him, "How much do you know about pianos"?  "Oh, a lot!" he
said.  I replied "Fine.  Look at this sound board and tell me what
_you_ think!"  By this time the manager had walked over; both of them
claimed that the soundboard was "just fine."  I didn't buy the piano.

Six months later, I was contacted by them to "haul it away" for free.
We installed new strings, repaired the soundboard, replaced the
hammers, and installed the client's action.

My rescue efforts will not reverse the trend.  It's going to take all
of us just to make a dent in this insanity.

What is your rescue story?

Cheers
Andy Taylor
Tempola Music Rolls