I have followed with interest the tales of much-travelled instruments.
I think that we should give Hal Davis a medal as well as the record!

In another vein, has anyone come across unusual uses being made
of players?  I ask after reading a history of Collard and Collard,
the piano makers, from notes for an BBC Overseas Broadcast in 1938.
In there is a quotation from Edgar Brinsmead's "History of the
Pianoforte" regarding the destination and fate of old pianos:

  "The adventurous Frenchman De Tonnant, for some time King of
  Anaucaria, soliciting the support of an old Patagonian chief,
  bestowed upon him an old worn-out Grand which he had purchased for
  80 francs.  De Tonnant, paying an early morning call on the old
  chief, discovered him with his spouse comfortably sleeping inside
  the piano, having previously torn out its innards"!

Any advance on a bed?

Roger Waring
The Pianola Workshop
Solihull, England
http://www.pianola.co.uk/