Yes, I started an onslaught of comments.  For the record, the little
J&C Fisher art case piano is still all together, playing in the
background as I type.  I have really enjoyed having this piano in the
store and really hope someone comes and buys this piano complete.  I
have pumped the tracker bar and played it everyday.  It is playing
better each day and needs action regulation and some player work to
bring it back to its former glory.

I mentioned this at the beginning with the hopes that someone out there
in MMD land would want to buy this piano.  The real bargain that has
surfaced is the Knabe that Don Winter has for sale.  Think of all the
restoration work that has already been done on these pianos -- and
there seems to be no takers.

The prices on the stock market have taken a real beating, as has the
player piano markets.  The player market was dropping before the stock
market, so we can not really blame the stock market for the player
market slump.  The bulk of the sales of player pianos were sales to
people that remembered them as children and had always wanted one.
Today we need to spend more time showing these instruments to the
public.  Although we do not sell rebuilt players in this store, we do
show them some of the ones that I consider interesting.  We have an
Encore banjo, Cremona G, and a Western Electric Mascot taking up
valuable sales space on display.  You can now add a J&C Fisher to that
list as we show it to all kinds of customers giving the public a taste
of what was available.

I thought of putting the Wurlitzer harp on display, and the single
Mills Violano.  Unfortunately there are now no longer any player techs
living in the area making a living restoring players.  As the player
techs passed away so has the demand for restoring the players.  The
last player tech passed away about five years ago.  One of his last
comments to me was that we could always count on Christmas for a player
piano sale and had not sold a player the past couple of years.

My personal dismay has been a double-edged sword.  As the price of
player pianos of the 88-note variety has dropped, so has the price of
some nickelodeons.  A restored Seeburg H recently sold for a little
over a $100,000 which is a far cry from the high price of several years
ago.  There has been two restored Seeburg G's for sale recently for
less than I was offered for my unrestored G several years ago.  The
Mills Violano has suffered the price reduction also.

The bad news is the value of my personal collection has dropped, but
the good news is that some other pianos are almost affordable.  If I
ever get the time to take pictures of the pianos I have duplicates of
then perhaps I will be able to sell some of them.  Unfortunately, they
will be sold at a loss.

Don Teach