Forwarded Message:

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• From: BTHORNTON@delphi.com      To: Terry_Smythe@MBnet.MB.CA
 Subj: clock organ               Area: 16-Email            Date: 04/19/95
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•internet"Terry_Smythe@MBnet.MB.CA"


Terry,

Just returned from another trip to Brady's  installing
some of my completed projects.  One of the projects was quite
unique...  It's a huge Grandfather clock with a built in organ w/
22 stopped wooden flute pipes which play off a pinned cylinder.
All handmade, weight driven.  A lot of the mechinism and all the
pipes were in terrible shape but it was all there.  He found it
at a yacht club on the east coast, like you found your Welte,
following up on a music box lead.  He thought it had been Made
in the 1840s, but as I took it appart I found an inscription:

•                    1800
               Ernst Trummeler
               Freiburg  u./T
                  Germania

•Its the oldest piece I've restored. It took patience to figure
out how to get it all back together.  When I work on all these
old things I feel like an archaeologist peering through a window
into a frozen piece of time.  As I handled the pieces and metic
ulously reglued the smashed pipes, I experienced the feeling in
spades.  Images of late 18th cent german village life poured into
my head.  Soft yellow sun light cuting into the deep dark interior
of an old craftsmans shop though skylights and long narrow windows.
....Not to mention what I felt when I finally got the thing to play.
This project presented a quandry I haven't delt with in some time
becuase the player stuff is so routine. And that is: How far do you
take a restoration?   I think sometimes renovation and restoration
clash.  This was more apparent when I was involved in arch. restortion.
People had  extreme fanaticism to take the structure back to the day
it was built...in doing so erased much of it's charm and history.  I
think its important to preserve in a gracefull way the essence of time
that an object has passed through.  I don't have much trouble w/Jim
there, but The fellow in Wisconson I'm restoring the 153 Wurlitzer for,
wanted to chrome plate all the Spoolframe parts and the Bells....eeechh!
It took a while but I was able to talk him out of it.

Well, the next project is a Seeburg Eagle w/ violin pipes.
Looks like its been in a sauna. Lots of contact cement holding
the verneer on.  I think the piano wore out before the player did!

Received a letter from Jody about the new group. I
signed on to the list.  Hope it works out!

take care,

Brian

P.S. would you have any idea what the u./T means