Walter Tenten asked about a Mazzoletti barrel piano seen in an
antique store near his home in Germany.

Since it is clockwork driven you will probably find a coin slot
somewhere.  You wind it up and wait for some unlucky person to drop
a coin into the slot and then it will bombard them with noise for a
minute or so.  Now, they don't always sound that bad -- my friend Jeff
can actually make one sound sort of nice, at least for a short while
until it goes out of tune.  He has one that is reiterating and it
sounds really neat.

What amazes me are the prices that some dealer put on these things.
At a local antique fair there was a small barrel piano in about the
same condition, all painted and rusty.  I asked to turn the handle and
was rewarded with the most terrible noise I've ever heard: short of a
large cat that had used up most of its 9 lives.  Usually I can play it
and hear some potential, but this was just sickening.

"How much," I asked.  "$6000," he said.

"But it sounds terrible and it will cost a bundle to repair it."
"Okay, $3500.  It's really old, from the last century," says he.

"Why does it say 'Made in Spain - 1955' on the plaque inside?"
(Written in English, no less!)  "Probably the serial number," says he.

I couldn't wait to get far enough away to laugh.  Several people called
me that night to ask about it.  They had gotten prices all the way down
to $1500.

Now, just for the fun of it, how much did the dealer want for the
Mazzoletti barrel piano?

Craig Smith
near Rochester, NY, USA