Robbie said to Pat DeWitt on this subject (050102 MMDigest):

>[ How much are you willing to pay?  There are a few such machines
>[ in this world, but the owners must be convinced that you need the
>[ device more than they do.  Ten or fifteen ten years ago a completely
>[ restored 88-note Themodist/Metrostyle push-up player sold for
>[ $6,000, as I recall.  Yes, they are rare.  You might find one for
>[ sale in the UK.  -- Robbie

Only last year Rex Lawson saw one in a London auction which went
for =L=970 ($1843).  The reason he didn't buy it was that it was an
original 65/88-note version with the double tracker-bar and massive
sliding changeover switch removed and a four-hole tracking plain
88-note tracker-bar installed.  Me, I'd've bid twice that.

In 2002 Post-Bid Enterprise, the roll auction run by Frances Broadway,
sold a nice unmodified 65/88-note pushup for (I think) =L=3300 or
$6000.

If that sets a market rate, a small factory could probably make plain
88-note pushups new and just about survive selling them at $7000 at
the gate.  I think I'd do this in Eastern Germany where there are
still good piano-making skills.

There's a fair number of 65-note pushups swilling about in Australia,
where there aren't many rolls for them, so they're readily available.
We thought it shouldn't be beyond most restorers to convert two to an
88-note stretch version.  I think I'd solve the lack of a changeover
switch, if I wanted to retain 65-note with a tracker-bar that slid
out from behind to lift the roll off the 88-note one, by using rubber
tubes to both with a cam system that crushed one set of tubes flat,
everything being worked by a fairly heavy lever.

Rex did make an 88-note pushup in the 1970s, of which he still has
the remains, but used a stack and lower unit from an upright.  This
wasn't anything like powerful enough for playing big grands.  At the
time I had roughly repaired and resold several 65-note pushups, and
was horrified by its comparative poor performance.  You could just
about make it speak properly by standing on the pedals.  After three
rolls you needed a change of clothes, if you hadn't got cramp by then.
A good learning experience, though.

Dan Wilson, London