Getting back on-line after a couple of weeks of holiday stuff,
I noticed all the posts about Gulbransens last month.  Here's
an experience I just have to tell:

Just before my Christmas Vacation, I was called out to look at a
Gulbransen Player which had "stopped playing" a few months earlier.
When I got inside the thing it was very clean and _all original_.

The obvious problem was loose linkage between the reroll cut-out and
the lever, and a mouse-chewn hose to the sustain pedal pneumatic.
To my complete astonishment, the thing played like the day it left
the factory -- one foot and all.

They asked me about rebuilding it and I told them it was one of the
more expensive stacks to rebuild.  Never has the phrase, "Never Kick
a Sleeping Dog," applied so well.

I convinced the owners to just let it be.  I have never seen any
original player in such good shape.  Besides, I want to see just
how long it does go before it gives up the ghost.

Brian Thornton, Short Mountain Music Works
109 North Cannon Street, Woodbury, TN 37190
tel: 615-563-5814
http://www.mindspring.com/~goatboy/smmw.htm

 [ It ought to play "'till the last dawg is hung!"  ;)  -- Robbie