Hi all,  A follow-up posting to the search back in August for a player
piano for my niece in the Seattle area.  She had a computer hard-drive
crash just before we arrived, so lost most of the contacts!  But we did
have a list, and I called around to piano stores and music shops.

I was amazed to be told, "You don't want one of those old things, we
have modern ones that play themselves with computers."  This happened
more than once!  My niece's response: "Play themselves?  I've got a
stereo if I just want to listen to music!"

Well, we had a number of places to check, and one of the first was
with Eric Shoemaker, who had us meet in a Jack-in-the-Box parking lot.
While waiting for Eric, I told Arwen, "This feels like a drug deal!"
Eric showed up and said, "Follow me," and we drove a few blocks to
a storage facility.  "This really feels like a drug deal now," I said.

Eric opened his storage container, full of piano stuff, a Conn theatre
organ and other neat stuff.  In the middle of all this is a player that
he's been rebuilding, almost finished.  Arwen fell in love with it, and
I thought the work looked very good.  We talked about it on the way
home.

Before we left, we discovered that Eric and I have some mutual
friends -- and he'd heard of me!  They decided to go for it, and Arwen
made a deal for him to finish the work (I live far too far away).

Well, the work took much longer than anticipated, and the piano was
finally delivered to their home on the 23rd.  She loves it!  I sent her
some rolls and a tracker bar pump and some basic care instructions.
So a big thank you to all for helping us find it!

And what a mountain of resistance we in the hobby have to climb when
it comes to letting people know about players -- I could not believe
how many folks I called who tried to discourage me from finding a
foot-pumped player, including some who advertised players in the
Yellow Pages!

David Dewey