Hello All,  Jeffery Wood's recent posting reminded me of the
Apollo-phone piano I owned with a high school friend in the early
1970s.  We bought the piano from the original owners: three aged
sisters (at that time they would have been called spinsters) who
lived in a wonderful big old Victorian house in our home town of
Evanston, Illinois.  They were major collectors of glass, china,
and had a renowned Lincoln memorabilia collection -- all of which
was out of our reach in those days.

The piano was offered at the princely sum of $75.  It was a big dark
mahogany piano in great original condition and the spring motor and
internally mounted phonograph worked fine.  They offered us their
collection of piano rolls but they wanted $2 each for them, and at
that price we quickly turned them down.  We later found out that there
were no takers for the rolls (and many other pieces we heard) and the
house was shortly thereafter bulldozed by Northwestern University for
the creation of a new student dorm building.  I now wonder if there
were any of the 'Synchronized' rolls in their collection.  We did
find one Imperial roll in the bench that referred to an accompanying
vocal recording, but I don't know what happened to that roll.

The biggest surprise of the day was when we enlisted our dads to help
us move the piano from their parlor.  The front porch was high off
the street with at least 20 steps and that big old upright was heavy,
and I mean heavy!  There was a lot of grunting, sweating, and cussing
by our dads -- at us and the piano -- but we got it home safe and
sound.  The piano languished for many years in storage and ultimately
went to my friend when he later moved to Salt Lake City.

It was fun watching that piano "magically" rewind using that big
spring motor.

Best regards,
Marc J. Sachnoff