Reading Larry Schuette's comments about the value of player pianos
today, gave me pause to think about my own relationship to same.

I had my first encounter with a player piano in 1957 during the first
summer after graduating from high school.  It was for sale in a small
music store and the price was $500.00, a small fortune for me, and
against my parents objections I used all that I had saved for my first
year tuition at an art school in Los Angeles to buy the piano.

The piano quickly became the center of family fun and our awful
attempts to sing such songs as "Il Boccio", "In The Baggage Car Ahead"
and "Rose of No Man's Land", the family favorites.  My illogical
investment was soon forgiven and the piano even had a brief moment of
celebrity when it was used to create atmosphere for a municipal art
gallery show in 1959 of "Old Favorites Revisited" (famous Victorian
paintings) that was promoted on local TV.

In the following years I scoured the local junk stores seeking
additional piano rolls and subsequently obtained my first Ampico
rolls.  Having no Idea what those extra holes on either side were for,
it annoyed me that I had to put tape over the ends of the tracker bar
to play them.

Within the next few years I learned that the Ampico was a very special
kind of player piano and various associates and student friends helped
me acquire more Ampico rolls in anticipation of the day when I would
acquire an Ampico reproducing piano.  That day arrived in 1964 and to
this day it has been a very important part of my life.  It has been
totally rebuilt twice since my owning it and today has a value far less
than the total amount that I have invested in its restoration.  I also
still have the original player piano and it is currently residing in
my neighbor's home as a practice piano for their son.

The point of all this is that we have to encourage people to view the
player piano not as an investment for value growth but more along the
lines of investing in an entertainment center or a new car which
rapidly loose their value and are often discarded with little or no
value remaining.  The difference being that the piano is still capable
of providing pleasure and entertainment year after year without the
curse of having to replace it because of technological improvements.

Cecil Dover