I must inform the group that Steve Lanick of Pittsburgh died last Wed-
nesday at the age of eighty-nine.

Steve was one of the finest restoration and refinishing people I have
ever met, and I am proud to say he was one of the best friends I had in
Pittsburgh.  He was an antique restorer and worked for several antique
shops in the neighborhood.  But he was also a fine builder and restorer
of automatic instruments.

Steve was a member of the Musical Box Society International for years.
He suffered a stroke a few years ago and lost the ability to work in
his shop.  This was the beginning of the end for him.

He taught me all he knew about band organs, from making wooden pipes to
finishing, but more importantly showed me a philosophy of restoration
that was ultimately responsible for my becoming curator at the new
Bayernhof Museum in Pittsburgh.

When I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears technician, I somehow arranged a
visit to Steve's house, and he showed me a pedal pneumatic from some
European orchestrion that he was working on. It was painted a lustrous
black, with all of the felt replaced, and the actuating rod and even
the screws were polished.  It looked like a piece fresh from the fac-
tory.  I learned then that this is what Steve tried to do with every
part of every machine that he worked on.  I had merely been recovering
and sort of wiping down pieces when I did them and had never really
thought about trying to do them the way Steve did them.  From then on,
I tried to imitate what Steve did in my own restorations, but as good
as I always tried to be, I felt that I was in the presence of the
master when I was with him.

As a young man, I didn't have a lot of self-confidence and was often
defeated by the lack before I began.  I once owned a Super Reproduco
that had no player stack.   I tried to think of some way to fit another
stack to it and told Steve about my plans to put a Price and Teeple
adjustable stack into it.  He said, "Why don't you build one like the
original?"  I said I didn't think I could, but he said, "Why not?"
I eventually got a Reproduco in to restore and I copied the Coinola
player stack from that one and installed it in the Super.  Steve guided
me on cutting the wedge-shaped pouch boards.

The point is not the doing of this, but the idea that I could if I
tried.  I went on to apply that thinking to other things that I tack-
led, and not just in the field of automatic instruments.  I started my
own shop and rebuilt reproducing pianos, orchestrions, and band organs,
painting and polishing as I went.  Because of this background, a friend
of mine introduced me to Charles Brown, for whom I restored some in-
struments.  When Mr. Brown died, his will stated that his machines
should be restored and his 19,000 sq. ft. mansion turned into a museum
for the public.  I became its first -- and so far only – curator.  I
live here today, conducting tours and maintaining the machines.

Steve Lanick and I went on several trips together.  One trip was to
Amarillo, Texas, where we exchanged a Weber Solea for a big Bruder fair
organ, a Weber Grandezza and a Weber Unika.  Another was to Haning and
White in Ohio to pick up a Gavioli band organ.  Many people who knew
Steve will remember the beautiful Wurlitzer 105 replica that he built
from scratch, copying his brother's organ.  He made the patterns for
casting the crankshaft and the roll frames from cast iron as per the
original, and while he was at it, he made patterns for 150 and 165
crankshafts too.  He had split gears made and even hoops and spring-
loaded drumhead tensioners for the drums.  He made and voiced all the
pipes in the 105 from seasoned wood, so that the pipes wouldn't warp or
split.  [Steve used to look for abandoned barns in the area, because he
prized the seasoned wood for pipemaking.  --Editor.]  That organ is one
of the finest, sweetest sounding little organs that you'd ever have the
pleasure to hear.  I recently recovered the stack pneumatics for it,
and, after 30 years, the pumps and valves look and operate like brand
new.  In a few years you won't be able to tell it from an original.

Steve gave the Wurlitzer 105 organ to his daughter as a gift.  After
his stroke, all his tooling and his machines were gradually sold.  But
his skills and knowledge died with him.

The funeral is set for Monday, January 14, 2008.

Tony Marsico
Curator, Bayernhof Museum,
Pittsburgh, Pa.