Dear Jerry and MMD,  Your Seeburg K #157,399 was made in 1923, and
your Western Electric #164,252 was made in 1927.

I've been researching the J.P. Seeburg Piano Co. since the 1970s, and
have enough documentation to make certain points with a fair amount
of accuracy.

First, the Marshall & Marshall serial numbers in the Pierce Piano Atlas
(formerly Michael's Piano Atlas) are wrong.  They do include certain
ranges of number which actually exist in Seeburg pianos, but they
don't account for four different manufacturers and numbering series,
(Haddorff, Gram, Seybold, and Seeburg), large gaps between certain
numbering series, and overlaps between others.

Dating a Seeburg or Western Electric piano requires that you identify
the maker of the piano and note whether it has an embossed steel
die-stamped serial number or a black ink rubber-stamped number.  The
easiest series is Haddorff: a Seeburg with a rubber-stamped number
on the piano plate was made by Haddorff, and you can find the number
in Pierce.  The Gram and Seybold numbers in Pierce are not accurate,
at least for Seeburg pianos.

The Haddorff numbers in Pierce seem to be accurate, as they correlate
with the Holtzer-Cabot motor serial numbers in earlier Seeburg pianos
which used that brand of motor (according to a dating list provided
to me by the successor to Holtzer-Cabot in the 1980s).  Most later
Seeburgs used Emerson motors, which have an encrypted date code; the
Emerson company hasn't yet provided me with dates as far back as the
late 'teens.  However, late (post-1921) Seeburg pianos usually had a
date stamped on the bottom of the piano hammers indicating when the
hammers were made.  These dates are how I've established the age of
pianos from this era.

My Seeburg serial number list isn't ready for publication yet, but I'm
happy to provide information on an individual piano if you e-mail me
the serial number, stack number (usually embossed into the top or front
of pre-1922 piano stacks), the pipe chest number (ditto), the pump
number (not quite as common), the coin box sticker number (post-1921
pianos), and the date stamped on the bottom surface of the piano
hammers (post-1921 pianos).

The stack numbers seem to indicate the actual number of the piano in
Seeburg's early production.  A surprising number of pianos -- seemingly
3 percent or more -- have later stack numbers than they should,
indicating that the original route owner bought a replacement stack
from Seeburg when the first set of pneumatics wore out.

(An older employee of Seeburg who led me on a tour of the plant in the
1960s said there were still stacks, pumps, and pipe chests in a stock
room when he began working there in the late 1930s or early 1940s, all
destroyed during WW2.  Many collectors have also found old stacks in
hoards of old parts and have installed these in pianos missing their
original stacks.)

The coin switch sticker numbers seem to indicate the actual number of
coin switches made after 1921 or 1922.  Of course, this latter number
doesn't include non coin-op Seeburg photoplayers and mortuary organs.

The two patent dates on the paper stickers found on the coin switches
are for Mills Novelty Co. patents that were licensed to Seeburg; the
stickers probably were used for tracking patent royalties owed to
Mills.  The first pneumatically-operated Seeburg Autophone and
Audiophone jukeboxes also used pneumatic coin switches with these
stickers.

Many of the pipe chest numbers seem to indicate how many of that style
pipe chest had been made, with style G and L orchestrions each having
their own individual series, and with style J and H pipe chest numbers
sharing the same series.

These numbers are interesting to me, as they might indicate the total
number of tall keyboard-style orchestrions of each model that were
made.  I need more pipe chest numbers to confirm this, however.  Two
and three-digit numbers on rewind boxes and miscellaneous small valve
boxes are batch reassembly numbers (used for reuniting the parts after
initial assembly & drilling, and then disassembly for leathering,
paint, etc.).

The piano hammer date is rubber-stamped on the bottom of the hammer
molding, usually in the center section, and it usually spans three or
four hammers.  It's easy to see with the action out of the piano, and
usually just a little harder to see with a flashlight and small mirror
held under the hammers.  To refine the accuracy of my list, I need as
many of these numbers stamped on original hammers as possible.  Every
time a set of post-1921 Seeburg hammers is replaced, we lose one more
bit of information unless you watch for it.

Best regards,

Art Reblitz