Hi All,  The Wurlitzer Photoplayer from the Strand Theatre in
Auckland's Queen Street is now at my home in Opotiki and I am slowly
examining all that remains.  It is in a very sad state due to storage
in a very damp shed with a leaky roof over the back end.

On examining what we have, we find that there is a complete foot
pedal keyboard.  It is not attached, and it is Wurlitzer, but in all
my research I have not seen any reference to this being an optional
extra available on order.  I tend to think that someone might have been
playing around later on, or that it was stored next to the player and
those emptying the shed assumed they went together.  Can anyone confirm
what is correct?  We want to restore this player to original factory
specs; so far I have been told both yes and no.

Now that we are in the light we can say the instrument is a 1915 Style
"K" Wurlitzer Photoplayer.  If anyone has parts for this photoplayer we
will certainly be looking for a lot of them.  Send us an email so we
can get back to you and we will put you on a parts list for further
reference.

We have formed a charitable trust to restore the player, which has
advantages for us in many ways.  The trust as a legal entity will own
the photoplayer, can apply for public funding, and can accept donations
which can be deductible from the donor's tax.  A charitable trust can
apply to funding agencies, such as "Lotteries Heritage", once we have
a conservator's report completed and have had the photoplayer declared
an instrument of significance national importance.  In a situation like
this the lottery board will pick up two-thirds of the restoration cost
leaving the trust to raise only one-third.

We are setting up a web site at http://www.photoplayer.org.nz/  Give
us a little while to get it up and running as it has to be built yet.
We have taken lots of photos which we will post for those interested
and will update it monthly.  The web site should be ready early July,
I hope.  Looking forward to your replies.

Regards
Don Paynter
Opotiki, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

 [ At http://theatreorgans.com/wota/nzorgans.htm is a list of extant
 [ Wurlitzer organs in New Zealand, including the MIDI-controlled
 [ 2/6 Wurlitzer player organ now owned by MMDer Michael Woolf.
 [ -- Robbie