Responding to Al Pebworth's opinions, I would like to clarify my ideas to
match what he had to say about them in MMD 971015

First, I do realize that the pianos will continue to "go downhill"
without proper restoration.  I realize in that that it becomes necessary
to warn people about this, which I do.  I have seen player pianos which
have not been restored and they play well enough for people to learn on,
and I have been witness to someone learning piano on it.

I realize that there are a lot of people who are proud to declare
themselves "Respected Experts", or whatever they choose for their title,
which are people who are not worthy of the title, indeed.  I, however, do
not claim that I am an expert, nor elude to it.  I agree with the fact
that people deserve and should get an expert opinion.

The most important thing that I have to stress is people do not want to
pay equal to or over the cost of a new Wurlitzer spinet piano (about
$2,000), for proper and total instrument restoration of the player
pianos, therefore, they're discouraged from ever owning a piano at all.
Keep in mind though, that if they later decide to they can go ahead with
the cost of total restoration, if they are convinced by the performance
of the patched player that that is what they want.  The whole idea to get
angry with the old piano being of bad quality and suggesting to others to
buy a disk piano for $12,000 goes out of everything they know and
expected of the piano I have introduced to them.

I enjoy fixing player pianos to the point where they will play again when
pumped, by restoring the necessities only, such as the wind motor and
bellows. I do this for the cost of materials only with friends of mine
(who have been the only recipients of the pianos which I have patched
up).  They are very satisfied.  They know the cost of restoring the piano
fully, which I explain to them before they buy the player.  In my
experiences this works well.

I want players to be totally restored, but in today's world that is not
going to happen, they're just not valuable enough.

Damon Atchison
Damon66@juno.com