Marie,¶
Michael Waters of Australia was good enough to post your question
about player pianos to the automatic music mailing list.  Here are
my suggestions.

You have five choices for a player piano that plays paper rolls:

  1. Buy a new one.
  2. Buy a professionally rebuilt old one.
  3. Get an old one from the want ads and have it rebuilt.
  4. Same as 3, but rebuild it yourself.
  5. Same as 3, and somehow it miraculously works without being fixed.

In detail:

  1.  The new player piano will most likely be constructed so that the
      player mechanism does not play the bottom octave.  This is very
      disconcerting when playing ragtime, because the boom of a
      boom-chuck is often lost.  Check new pianos for this deficiency.
      A new piano might cost $9000.

  2.  A good professional player-piano rebuilder can sell you a -real-
      player piano.  I urge you to find your local rebuilder.  Ask him
      how he restores his pianos.  Watch out for "electrified" ones--
      they probably have not been restored, just ruined.  Ask him what
      kinds of glue he uses.

•       Good answers:        Bad answers:
         hot glue             epoxy
         hide glue            Elmer's glue
         burnt shellac        aliphatic resin glue
         sermons about glue   white or yellow glue
                              refusal to talk about glue

•      The rebuilder should guarantee his work, and the piano should be
      as good as (if not better than) when it came out of the factory
      in 1923 or whenever.

      A properly rebuilt piano should cost you between $2500 and $5000.

  3.  Cost is about the same as 3, but the whole situation is riskier.
      You may select a very pretty piano that's no good for rebuilding.
      Additionally, you'll have to have the piano moved.  (Moving a
      piano yourself is probably more excitement than you need.)

  4.  Buy both of Arthur Reblitz's books before you begin.  It'll be a
      long time before you hear music from your piano.  You had better
      -enjoy- fiddling with little, intricate things, getting them all
      just right.  Most rebuilders seem to own several pianos, so the
      need to work on one does not deprive them of music.  Cost: a lot
      of time, plus the money for a whole workshop of weird tools.

  5.  You just might get lucky.  Or you might be buying someone else's
      shattered dream that's doomed to work badly through eternity.
      You'll have to move it.  Don't buy a piano that's been stored in
      the basement.  TAKE A PIANO TUNER OR REBUILDER WITH YOU for your
      second look at any used piano you want to buy.  Unless you have
      good reason, don't pay more than $50 for an old, unrestored piano.

Good luck.

--Peter

PS:  Check out MY favorite source for ragtime music rolls, Artcraft
Piano Rolls in Wiscasset, Maine.  207-882-7420.

•= = =              neilson@pagesz.net      +1-919-775-3822
Peter Neilson               Saddlebred horses.  Many ponies.
7950 Lower River Road       One trick donkey.  Two cats.
Sanford NC 27330            Acres & acres of pine trees.