Let me add my two cents into this discussion regarding the Aeolian
player pianos from the 1960s and '70s, etc.  These players are getting
old now and the pneumatics are probably shot.  I have worked with lots
of these units over the years and lately it seems that more and more of
them are dying of old rubber cloth on the pneumatics.

I have two of the small Pianolas from the late 'sixties: one is perfect
and easy to pump by foot, while the other is dead as a doornail.  The
cloth on the pneumatics is flaky and becoming very porous.  It's time
to pull the stack and redo it or just use it as a piano and forget the
player.  One of my customers purchased an Aeolian "Sting II" player
from Las Vegas and it is more dried out than even I could imagine.

The question is, are these Aeolians worth the cost of rebuilding?
Most restorers say "no," but I am inclined to think that if only the
stack is the problem, then restore the stack and give it twenty or
thirty more years of life.  Out of all the player pianos manufactured
in that era, Aeolians were by far the best and the easiest to service.

These are not the best pianos in the world by far but they sure beat
the heck out of the electro-pneumatic monstrosities that were built by
Kimball and Wurlitzer during that same time period.

Jim Jelinek