I am again appalled that yet another original rare instrument is
probably going to be butchered.  If it was built as a T-98 "Green"
system then leave it that way.  If you have got a great selection of
"Red" rolls then buy a T-100 "Red" piano; they are certainly not that
difficult to acquire.

Welte instruments are built to such a high specification that every
original machine should be cherished.  So many have been broken up and
others gutted of their player action.  I may be wrong but Bechstein
Weltes are among the rarest of their reproducing instruments.  Certainly
in the UK, most of those supplied were Steinways or Feurichs.  There is
a Bechstein "Green" Welte in the Paul Corin Collection, Liskeard, Cornwall,
UK.  I have seen one other in the UK, perhaps there are others?  Perhaps
I am wrong about their rarity?

I always feel that it is a pity that all types of original instruments
are altered, whether it is so-called improving a Gavioli 87-key to a
89-key VB or G4 scale, for example, adding more pipes and registers to
a perfectly good Mortier organ.  Even in the realms of the cinema/theatre
organ when countless ranks of pipes are added to an original instrument
making it far from original and nothing like it would have sounded and
thrilled audiences in the 1920s and 30s.

Would you add a few flowers and "improve" the Mona Lisa, or perhaps add
a few figures to a Turner or Constable?  These instruments are just as
much works of art and should not be altered.  I have seen some excellent
instruments ruined in the UK, many a fair or band organ that no longer
bears any resemblance to when it was originally built or worked on the
fairground.  The adding of computer controls to play the music makes
a mockery of having an antique instrument.  Why not buy a CD player,
an amplifier and few loudspeakers and just through all those pipes that
go out of tune all the time.  So much easier!  In the UK so many very
rare barrel organs have been converted to book operation.  If you want
a book organ, buy a book organ, not a barrel organ.  If you want to play
"Red" Welte rolls then buy a "Red" Welte instrument.

I am sure my comments will stir up a hornets nest yet again.  But it
needs to be said.

Jonathan Holmes
Penzance, UK