In response to Damon Atchison's comment about diminishing numbers of
certain types of pianos, at least one fact is that most piano tuners
absolutely don't like to work on any kind of player piano.  Their fear
is that the customer will claim that they damaged something and that's
the reason it won't play any more.

In some cases where a player piano has been playing since it was made
-- and in its fragile condition it could easily be caused to no longer
play by even a slight bump to a piece of brittle hose or tubing --
there is a legitimate cause for feeling this way.

Years ago I made an arrangement with several of the local tuners to go
with them whenever they had to work on a player piano.  For a fee, I
would remove and replace whichever parts of the player action that was
necessary for them to be able to repair or regulate the piano action.
I would usually get one or two calls a year.

In my own experience with potential customers for a player action
rebuilding, I met with a lot of disappointment for a time.

Whenever I was called to see about repairing a player, I took the tack
of suggesting that the customer call a piano tuner to check out the
piano itself so that they would know it was worth the cost of the
player rebuild.

When I didn't hear from those people, I went and visited them again to
have a talk with them face to face to find out why they had lost their
enthusiasm to have their player working again.

Without exception, I was told that when the tuner came to tune the
piano, he would tell them that the piano would sound better with the
player action removed and that it would be best just to let the tuner
remove all traces of the player action and accessories, at no extra
charge.  Tuners don't generally want to have anything to do with
working on any kind of player or automatic piano.

This, in fact, is the very reason that I decided to take the William
Braid White Piano Technician Course and learn to tune and repair pianos
and piano actions, in addition to the player actions which I'd already
been doing for nearly twenty years.

As long as there are tuners that don't want to work on mechanically
played pianos, and as long as there are piano owners who succumb to the
logic of those tuners, there will continue to be a diminishing number
of mechanically played pianos.

As I am no longer able to use my hands to do the work, I find myself
in a position that I would have found strange several years ago.
I have a fine Weber upright piano that I must move out of my shop and
I am presently unable to rebuild the 65/88 note Themodist-MetroStyle
player for it.

A music teacher in the area, knowing of the quality of the Weber, will
pay me $500 for it if I remove the player action.  I'd rather sell it
with the player, which needs restoration, for $600, but who wants to
buy a 1910 player piano and restore it themselves.  If I have to remove
the player action, there will be one less player piano in the world.

Hal Davis