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MMD > Archives > January 2017 > 2017.01.22 > 03Prev  Next


Rare Steger Natural Player Action
By Luke Myers

Hello everyone,  One interesting thing: I was looking for patents
on the Steger Natural Player and found a couple patents that were
very similar but not the exact same as mine.  The design in my stack,
I feel, was some kind of short-lived concept that probably exists
in no more than 10 pianos, if not only in mine!

It seems like mine incorporated some of the same parts, but had slight
variances.  My theory is that this makes it extremely rare and also
very valuable.  I'd hazard a guess that it is the only one of that
design, still in reasonable shape.

As far as I have researched, that particular Steger action from my
piano is so rare that it would be futile, if not absolutely impossible,
to find the same design in a given amount of 100,000 player pianos.
There was only one piano I ever saw in all the countless players out
there, that had a stack designed like mine, and that player was listed
in the Stillwater, Oklahoma, Craigslist, about a whole year ago.
Images of the most similar patents are at the links below.

  http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/01/22/170122_101140_US1021502-Steger%20Natural%20Player.pdf 
  http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/01/22/170122_101140_US1174807-Steger%20Natural%20Player.pdf 

Here is a schematic (two pictures are included) that I drew up about
two weeks ago of the workings of my unique 1910 double valve Steger
action.  I represented it as closely as possible to the actual stack,
though some details were too difficult to include, such as the hole in
the back of the pneumatic in which air is supposed to rush through and
keep the pneumatic open when it is not playing its note.  The schematic
is more simplified than an actual patent drawing, of which I have not
found any.

  http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/01/22/170122_160107_1910%20Steger%20Natural%20Player%20Schematic-%20Piano%20Serial%20#48995-1.JPG 
  http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/01/22/170122_160107_1910%20Steger%20Natural%20Player%20Schematic-%20Piano%20Serial%20#48995-2.JPG 

If anyone out there is a Steger player historian or has worked on one
similar to mine, feel absolutely free to shoot me an email.

Luke Myers
ldmyers95@gmail.com.geentroep [remove ".geentroep" to reply]


(Message sent Mon 23 Jan 2017, 00:01:07 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.)

Key Words in Subject:  Action, Natural, Player, Rare, Steger

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