Here's an ad I spotted in today's paper:

        PIANO Newcombe, 1920. Player parts complete but needs
        work. $1200/best offer.

I haven't contacted the vendor yet, and I'm wondering if this woulld be
suitable as my first player. I confess I'm still a bit of a newbie
with respect to automatic musical instruments, but I've read accounts
which state that an 88-note player is definitely the best thing as a
first project. I only have space in the house for *one*
instrument...should it be a presently dysfunctional one? Hmmm...

Any advice what I should ask when I call? From the phone number, I
gauge that it would take a considerable amount of time (~ 2 hrs each
way) or considerable cost ( >$40 each way) to travel to the
instrument. This means I'm not interested in making the trip on a
whim.

My knowledge of player piano innards comes chiefly from Q. David
Bowers' writings, as well as the restoration book published by Vestal
in the late 1960's [brain spasm! the author's name escapes me at the
moment. Larry somebody-or-another? Givens? No, probably not. Arrrrr.].
Of course, there's also all the info I've archived from this list!
I've had Reblitz's player restoration book on order for a lot longer
than I want to contemplate, though I've had his non-player piano book
for a few years already. I've read some of Ord-Hume's books but I
dislike his styls of organising information. Consequently I haven't
learned much from them.

Any comments on Newcombe? I've never heard of 'em before. Thoughts on
the price? Those are Canadian dollars, BTW, which works out to about
US$850. FWIW, older generic uprights sell in this part of the world
for CAN$600-$900.

Sorry for being so long-winded about such newbie stuff...

- Colin Hinz
  asfi@interlog.com

 [ Editor's Note:  Colin, I'm sorry this message took so long to get
 [ out to the subscribers.  I hope that the responses you get are in
 [ time to be useful.  Jody