I have been reading the commentaries about the "death" of player
pianos and reproducing pianos.  And, there is no doubt that today in
2009 certain coin-operated pianos, such as the popular Seeburg cabinet
models, are no more expensive today than they were 30 years ago.

For a hobby such as automatic musical instruments to be dynamic it has
to have a number of factors that come together all at once.  These
factors are not unique to automatic musical instruments, but also apply
to other fields (such as rare coins, which has been my business all of
my life).  These are what I might call observable realities -- perhaps
worth contemplating in the search for understanding:


(1) Items should be collected and desired for their curious and
interesting value as messengers from the past -- antiques from a bygone
era.  In the course of helping conduct Hathaway & Bowers and American
International Galleries I answered a lot of questions and did a lot of
contemplation.

Using Regina music boxes as a popular example, these were not collected
for their music alone, as LP records and, later cassettes, provided all
of the music anyone could desire.  Moreover, someone buying, for
example, a Regina 27-inch disc-changing music box, a "poster example"
of a desired item, and getting with it say a couple dozen discs, would
typically recognize only a handful of tunes.

Nor were they collected as reminders of childhood, as no one in 1967
(when Hathaway & Bowers was founded) cherished memories of a Regina disc
changer in their neighborhood drug store, or an Ampico playing in their
living room.  Similarly, in rare coins a 1652 Massachusetts Pine Tree
shilling does not evoke memories of having these in pocket change.  The
purchase of a letter written by George Washington, or Harry Truman, or
Robert E. Lee is not purchased because the buyer wants the information
in those letters.

The reason these things are popular is because they are collectible as
antiques.  Time and again, at Hathaway & Bowers and at American
International Galleries, someone would want to get one each of the
three popular disc diameters of Regina music boxes (15-1/2", 20-3/4",
and 27 inches), or they already had an Ampico but wanted a Duo-Art or
a Welte to go with it, etc.  This is the _rationale_ of the permanent
value of such antiques.


(2) According to Gresham's Law in economics, the bad drives out the
good.  If a government prints a huge amount of paper money with no
backing, the value of this drops.  In automatic musical instruments,
modern substitutes or clones of antique instruments diminish the value
of antiques.

In the 1970s an entire subculture arose of taking an ordinary household
upright piano and adding a motor, pump, bells, drums, glass, and the
like to create a modern orchestrion using, for example, Coinola "O"
rolls.  Whereas a Seeburg Style G orchestrion might cost $10,000 to
$20,000 then, a new orchestrion would cost less, not require restoration,
and had its own appeal.

Similarly, there have been any number of clones of classic cars that
are cheaper than the originals.  Today, these made-up modern
orchestrions are frequently sold in auctions, hardly ever described as
a "modern orchestrion made using an old piano and adding instruments
to it." Instead, they are pictured and simply called an "orchestrion."
Although these can be fine in their own right, they are not antiques
and are "bad" in the sense of Gresham's Law.  A Seeburg, Wurlitzer, or
Nelson-Wiggen orchestrion today in 2009 has a lower value than it would
if new orchestrions had not been made.

For the collector of reproducing pianos who owns one simply for the joy
of listening to the music of pianists of the early 20th century, the
modern electronic Yamaha is just as good for listening, and the music
supply (copies of old-time piano rolls) is cheaper and more extensive.
Someone wanting to listen to such music would probably be more
satisfied by buying a modern Yamaha than buying an Ampico grand and
a Duo-Art grand and having both restored.

Because of this, reproducing grand pianos are worth less than they were
in 1967, which was 42 years ago.  Similarly, the availability and cheap
cost of calliope reproductions has driven down the value of and desire
for the classic Tangley CA-42 or the National calliopes of the 1920s.
In coins, deceptive modern counterfeits drive down the value of authentic
coins.


(2a) If someone buys a modern made-up orchestrion for, say, $10,000
and then hears about the Musical Box Society or AMICA and goes to
a meeting, he or she will probably hear, "What you bought is a piece
of modern zzz (you fill it in) and it has no real value."  If someone
buys a fake 1652 Pine Tree shilling on the Internet for a bargain $500,
instead of the $5,000 a real one might cost, and goes to an American
Numismatic Association convention, he or she will be told, "You bought
a piece of worthless junk."

In both of these scenarios, each hobby as probably lost a person who
could have developed a real interest.  The bad has driven out the good.


(3) The hobby of amateur restoration.  Beginning in the 1960s when the
Vestal Press (Harvey and Marion Roehl) sold tens of thousands of copies
of Larry Givens' "Rebuilding the Player Piano", an entire subculture of
restorers developed.  It was fun to buy an unrestored player for $200
to $500 or so, take it home, order cloth, leather, and rubber parts
from Durrell Armstrong or somewhere else, and bring a long-silent
player back to life.  It took time to do this, but it was fun.

I started by knowing absolutely nothing about the subject, but under
the guidance of Harvey and Marion, who were neighbors at the time,
I rebuilt (including restringing the piano and refinishing the case)
a Seeburg Style L coin piano and a Style G piano.  I worked with Harvey
and Marion on restoring a player piano for a local rest home (we found
a piano and contributed our work).  Today, time capital is much more
valuable.  What with the Internet (in particular) and other things to
do, the idea of spending a couple hundred hours rebuilding a player is
not as attractive.


(4) The Vestal Press in its day was an important factor in this
dynamism.  The Roehls kept a steady stream of new books and reprints
on the market, creating interest.  Musical museums were open to the
public at the Cliff House, Deansboro (New York), Sikeston (Paul Eakins
in Missouri), Svoboda's Nickelodeon Tavern (Chicago Heights, Illinois),
Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Horn's (later Bellm's) Cars and Music
of Yesterday in Sarasota, the Stagecoach Museum (Osborne Klavestad in
Shakopee, Minnesota), and a half dozen other places.  Many people who
visited these displays became collectors.  Today, the Vestal Press is
gone, with no modern equivalent.  Today, very few museums feature coin
pianos or orchestrions that people can play.


(5) Commercial restoration has become expensive.  The price of labor
has risen.  While in the 1960s it might have been possible to have
a Wurlitzer CX or Seeburg G orchestrion completely professionally
restored for, say, $4,000 to $5,000, today the cost is several times
that.


(6) Positive factors still in place are these:

(6a) The Musical Box Society and AMICA are both alive and well and
furnish a common meeting ground for birds of a similar musical feather.
Occasionally, politics and grandstanding takes place as officers make
up rules or want to emphasize their importance -- these are detrimental
to each organization and keep people away.  (In the early 1960s I was
told that coin-operated pianos and orchestrions had no place in the
affairs of the Musical Box Society, for example, and in the same decade
in AMICA there was a huge amount of bickering about personalities).
However, by and large both MBSI and AMICA have done fine.

_Central_ to the success of each society is an interesting magazine
with a capable editor.  This is much more important that who is or
is not the current president of a group or who is on the board of
directors.  The more diverse the content of these magazines, the better
-- a mix of modern social news and gatherings, historical research, and
more, plus a diversity of coverage; a Fischer upright Ampico piano is
as important as is a Hupfeld Helios orchestrion or an unrestored
Ariston reed organ.  Information on restoring, displaying, and sharing
your interest is important.


(7) For the future to be strong for our hobby, I see that these are
needed, including factors already in place:

a. MBSI and AMICA to remain strong, campaign for new members, and,
above all, issue a parade of interesting "must read" publications.

b. Reference books should be distributed as widely as possible, and
new books written and published.  It would be nice to have a modern
incarnation of the Vestal Press.

c. Meetings such as conventions, rallies, open houses by collectors,
and the like are essential -- the more the better.

d. A business/supply industry including capable restorers, recut music
rolls and reproductions of old music discs, supplies for do-it-yourself
rebuilders and the like needs to be nourished.

e. The more dealers who buy and sell instruments and publish catalogues
(or Internet offerings) the better.  Ideally, such sellers should
include detailed descriptions of the items offered, so that the buyers,
upon receipt, will find an item to be exactly as expected, with no
surprises.

f. Emphasis needs to be made on the desirability of instruments as
antiques and collectibles, not as the best source for old-time music.


These are some of my thoughts, to the extent they may be of interest
to you.

Dave Bowers
Wolfeboro Falls, New Hampshire, USA