Just thought the MMD readers might be interested.  I think that it
is amazing that such an instrument has laid unknown for so many years.
You never know perhaps a No 10 or a large Helios might turn up next!
Let's hope that this instrument stays within the UK and doesn't end up
in the States or Japan.  So many have already been lost to the States.
It is the first Welte orchestrion that I have seen with such ornamental
metal pipes.  Sorry I don't have access to scanner; can anyone else post
the images in the catalogue?  The catalogue entry is as follows :-

  Mechanical Music and Technical Apparatus
  Thursday 27 July 2000 at 2.00 PM
  Christies - South Kensington
  85, Old Brompton Road
  London  SW7 3LD
  Tel 020 7581 7611

  Lot 122 A Welte No. 2 "Cottage" Orchestrion

  with 146 pipes including eighteen trumpets and thirty three
  metal pipes (twenty nine with red blue and gilt stylised flower
  decoration), large drum, cymbal and triangle, gravity motor main
  drive with ratchet winding crank and separate gravity motor for
  snare drum.  75 hole tracker bar and swell shutters in each side
  door, in oak panelled case with glazed central front, the side pipe
  displays and motor and roll drive sections further enclosed by oak
  panelled doors -- 107-1/2 inches (272 cm) high, 67-1/2 inches (171.5
  cm) wide at cornice, 39-1/4 inches (99.5 cm) deep, with fifty-seven
  red rolls in printed tinplate canisters, the majority housed in an
  oak chest.

  The Welte roll playing orchestrions are often considered the most
  desirable of the type, offering a far wider and more convenient
  choice of music than the older, barrel operated orchestrions.
  This example was formerly at Callart House in Inverness-shire;
  this house was inherited jointly by the two younger sisters of
  Lady Fairfax-Lucy of Charlecote (Warwickshire); the family name
  was changed to Cameron-Lucy in 1898, and in 1902 the middle sister,
  Constance Linda, married Major General Sir John Secker.  The Seckers
  and the youngest sister Joyce Alianore, who never married, lived at
  Callart until the latter's death in 1948, after which the house and
  its contents were sold.  The house remained uninhabited ever since,
  and the Orchestrion accordingly shows all the signs of 50 years of
  neglect, with surface rust showing on bright parts of the mechanism
  and woodworm attack in parts of the case.  The pipes appear to be in
  excellent condition.

  It's unclear exactly when the sisters inherited the house, but
  extensive additions were built around 1900 including the billiard
  room in which the Orchestrion was housed, and the 1902 marriage
  could well have occasioned these works and the acquisition of the
  Orchestrion.

  Estimate  GBP 20,000 - 40,000

As another point of interest I wrote about the sale of the Whites
98-key Gavioli and that it would be disastrous if it was lost to
Britain as it is part of our history.  Great news!  It was sold to an
English collector for an undisclosed sum.   May the orchestrion be also
bought by a UK collector.

Jonathan Holmes

 [ A photo of a beautiful Style 2 Welte Cottage Orchestrion appears in
 [ the article "Welte Orchestrions at Atlantic Garden," by Tim Trager,
 [ at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures/welte1.html