Hello all,  I need help please.  Here is some information on a piano
I am currently helping with.

The piano sits in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the owner, Terry, purchased
it 12 years ago from a farmer there.  He subsequently sent the piano
to Johannesburg in South Africa for repairs.  Over a year later, it
arrived back, still not repaired nor working.  Later, he decided to
repair it himself and somehow purchased the information and books
from PPCo in the US.

He managed to do quite a bit but the expression box proved to be too
complicated for him to rebuild.  He visited England and found a shop
there that offered to rebuild the expression box.  Back home, he
shipped the expression box to the UK and again, it took a very long
time to get it back.  It was rebuilt but all his labels had been
removed and the shop that did it went out of business.

Again, the piano sat for a long time until Terry found my details
on the Internet.  The problem is that I am in South Africa, which is
a couple of thousand kilometers away from where he is in Zimbabwe.
I have helped him purely by email and fax to the stage where he can
now start testing and adjusting the piano.  Unfortunately, some parts
are missing and I agreed to make replacements for him.

Nobody will really understand how difficult the situation is for
Terry.  I would request pictures but one can't buy a film over there
any more.  He has to import one from South Africa.  He then has to take
the pictures and send the film back to South Africa for developing.
And no, he can't use the post office because everything gets stolen.
He has to use a courier service.  Also, the phone lines are often down,
making it even more difficult to email etc.  I think we all know what
is going on there from the news and media...

The piano itself has an interesting story too.  It has a Harrods asset
number on it and all the rolls are marked 'Harrods Music Library'.
Thanks to Julian Dyer, Terry was able to write to the Harrods archive
and get some more info on the piano.  We now know that Harrods
purchased it from the makers, Aeolian, and later in 1934, after some
repairs, sold it to a customer.  It must have been a demo piano and
when they stopped using those, they must have sold it off, together
with their rolls.  We are not sure how it came all the way to Africa
from there, and everybody who might have known has since passed away.

In order to make this piano complete once again, I desperately need
some help from the owner of such a piano.  I am desperate for some
info.  I need some pictures of the mounting info and details for the
rewind/repeat pneumatic.  It does not mount like the US version, and
it seems that it is somehow screwed to the right inside of the piano.
I am not sure.

Big please, if anybody has such a piano or knows someone with such
a piano, please contact me directly.  It is all for the sake of
preserving one of these fine instruments under very difficult
conditions.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Kind regards,

Bernt Damm
Cape Town