Empress Keytop Player
Empress Keytop Player
"Little Empress Electric Cabinet
Player"
courtesy Ed Gaida <egaida@txdirect.net>
The advertisement shown in this picture comprises the entire rear cover
of the 1916-1917 Lyon & Healy catalog. Compare the illustration
with the essentially similar Coinola Cabinet Player shown in the lower
left corner of the Coinola color poster.
The cabinet containing the pneumatic player system was carefully attached
above the keyboard of an ordinary piano. Much smaller units to play
ordinary pianos were produced in the 1950s and '60s, and the generic term
became "keytop player". The market for these bulky devices was never
very big -- push-up players (including the German Vorsetzer) and keytop
players were bulky and funny looking in comparison to the sleek Pianola
with the mechanism housed within the piano case.
29 October 1999 [ return to MMD
Pictures site ]
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