National Piano Company also made race horse pianos.  These are the
pianos that featured a "Ferris wheel" changer in the them that allowed
the patron to select one of eight rolls by dropping a nickel in the
appropriate slot.  There is also one known Wurlitzer Pianino Race horse
piano.

All of the pianos with the racing mechanism came out late in the
production of coin pianos, around 1927.  Some manufacturers had the
figures spin in a circle and others had them go straight across the
front of the piano.  The Wurlitzer machine was a Pianino with the
horses in the top where you normally saw the piano roll mechanism.

The list of piano manufacturers that made race horse pianos includes
Wurlitzer, Seeburg, Western Electric, National, and Mills.  The Western
Electric is the most common of these pianos.  The Mills, by the way,
used the special 65-note Mills electric piano roll.

Don Teach
Shreveport, LA

 [ MMDer and lively historian Dick Bueschel, who died in April 1998,
 [ wrote in 970817 MMDigest:
 [
 [ "Jimmy Johnson, the last CEO of [Western Electric Piano Co.], took
 [ the race horse component and made it into a trade stimulator as well
 [ as a payout console slot machine on legs as 'Western Sweepstakes'.
 [ (Western had a patent on the game, and its connection to the piano.
 [ Seeburg, who owned Western, used the patent on their later 'Greyhound'
 [ piano.)  Johnson did so much better with the console than he did with
 [ pianos that he bought Western and turned it into a slot machine --
 [ and later pinball machine -- company."
 [
 [ -- Robbie