Since I am not in the retail business the war has not effected me in
that way, but the amount of restoration jobs that has come in over the
past two months has been phenomenal, more than I have ever had in
that space of time.  Surprisingly most of them are Ampico units: two
Marshall and Wendell uprights, two Fischer grands and a Chickering
with a "B" action.

Reproducers used to be the bulk of my work.  When the PianoDisc came
out, all this work I was mainly doing for dealers dried up.  Over the
last two years, restoration of Duo-Arts and Ampicos has slowly picked
up.

Another trend here in the past couple years has been an increase in
pump organ work.  I've done more pump organs in that time than the
whole twenty five years I've been in the trade.  What has happened in
the last couple of months is a virtual stampede -- in addition to the
Ampicos, three Seeburgs and three pump organs.

I don't know how long the situation will last overseas but I got enough
to keep me off the streets awhile. The flip side, however, is there
have been as many calls from people needing to sell their instruments
in this period of time.

Brian Thornton - Short Mountain Music Works
Woodbury, TN
http://www.shortmountainmusic.com/