•In the Digest of 15 Dec, Jack Littlepage was asking for information about a reed pipe organette carrying the name Clariona. He informs us that the instrument has an inscription, that says: "Wholesale Depot No. 25, East Fourteenth St. New York City", as well as the name "Merrill Gally". He is asking...

•John McTammany wrote _two_ books with confusingly similar names: 1) "The history of the player", 1913. This has never been reprinted, as far as I know. Small book, red covers, two tipped-in photographs but otherwise close-typed text throughout. All copies signed and numbered. 2) "The technical hist...

•Punched cards and elections brings to mind the name of John McTammany, player piano pioneer. When he was ousted from the mechanical music business, he turned his inventiveness to creating voting machines. Sadly, there are no details of them in his player piano books, but seeing that he was a great ...

•Those of you who are interested in player piano history and John McTammany might be interested in a letter which the seller describes as follows: Daniel E. Sickles (1825-1914) Union Major General. Sickles lost a leg at Gettysburg in an unauthorized advance from Little Round Top and was awarded the ...

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- I am a descendent of John McTammany. I currently have two of his books autographed to his nephew, John McTammany of Akron, Ohio. We are also in possession of his letters to my great-grandfather. Just thought you might want to know. Anita Zimcosky...

•BBC the History Channel is doing a story on John McTammany and will be filming here in St. Joseph, Missouri, on February 13th and 14th. Not much survives of McTammany's early inventions. He crossed Missouri in 1875 searching for backers and stayed briefly in St. Louis. He soon left St. Louis and ar...

•I have received the following request from the folks at The History Channel who want to film a documentary on any John McTammany mechanical music machines that might be in the US, especially in New York or Washington, DC, areas. > I am a producer at a London based production company called Nutopia ...

•I recently obtained from the estate of an old friend an early dual spool- and card-playing 14-note McTammany Organette. After completing full restoration and setting it up as obtained, I found it played card music perfectly but that music played from spooled rolls was very poor. Looking at the few ...

•-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD -- Player Piano Patented by John McTammany Jr. 120 Years Ago This Week This week in unofficial music history begins with the mother of all keyboard presets: This week in 1881 the player piano was patented by John McTammany Jr. Was he really the f...

•I know of a copy of this book that is evidently signed by John McTammany himself, and serial numbered. Were all of the copies personally signed? Does anyone know how many of them are known to exist? John D. Rutoskey

•In yesterday's MMD John Rutoskey described a copy of this book signed and numbered by the author. He wonders how many copies survive. I think all 1000 copies were signed and numbered, but that very few survive. The book was written by McTammany while in hospital, and describes his involvement with ...

•Here I am lurking again -- I love reading the MMD. I have one of those signed John McTammany books with a personal inscription to the recipient. The lady from whom I purchased my Ampico included it with the piano. Her father represented Mr. McTammany in some of his (many?) legal battles over the pa...

•Hello MMD readers, I noticed several postings on the subject of the John McTammany book. For many years The Musical Wonder House has featured a mint copy of this historical volume, in the glass cabinets directly under the Flying Staircase, just in front of my XY Solo-Orchestrelle (now silent and in...

•Pipes of Pan can now produce rolls for the 23-note McTammany Mechanical Orguinette. The rolls are shorter than the originals which have up to eight tunes. I have one original roll that is in good shape (which is rare!), but it starts binding in the take-up reel, so I have opted for 3 to 4 tunes per...

•John McTammany's "Technical history of the player" describes the long haul to the development of the double-valve pneumatic system, which took some 20 years after the paper-roll reed organs first appeared on the market. Oddly enough, some of the earliest player systems were solenoid- operated one w...

•This announcement may be of interest to those who will be traveling to the organ rally at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson September 11-13. There will be an auction in Manhattan, KS on Monday, September 14 that will offer a McTammany organette with 19 rolls, and a 140 year-old pump organ in "exc...

•The Munroe Organ-Reed Co. made organettes for Mechanical Orguinette, McTammany, Gally and others and manufactured reeds for the trade. Annual production reached 4,000,000 reeds in 1881, about one third of total annual U.S. production. The company was acquired by Aeolian in 1892 but continued to ope...

•Mike Knudsen questioned the construction of a pipe organ using a paper- as-valve system, given the unhappy effects this causes on organ pipes (MMD 99.10.14). I was recently looking though John McTammany's 'Technical history of the Player', and there are a surprising number of patents that propose p...

•Prompted by Donald H. Kieselhorst's note in MMD 030803, I've done a little more looking for Henry A. Kieselhorst, the original owner of my John McTammany book. Looking on http://www.familysearch.org/ for 'Kieselhorst' I find reference to Henry A. Kieselhorst of St. Louis, MO, born 11 March 1882, to...

•Many thanks to Melvyn Wright for his explanation of small organ scaling (MMD 970829). His simple suggestion of transposing the scales into C for comparison has solved a puzzle that has been entertaining me for ages. Here's how I've applied Melvyn's suggestion to the two organette scales I have at t...