Hi,  I fully agree with Ingmar Krause about the joys of restoring
instruments.  The problem arises when you have limited space and
resources and many offers of instruments that are basically free
for the taking (excluding the shipping costs).

To make matters worse, when you're offered 11 pianos at once --
it gets to be downright scary to consider such a thing.  How much
space would they take, how much would it cost me to ship them, could
I realize a meager payment for my efforts here?

The idealist in me would like to see every instrument restored,
the practicalist says that most players are simply not economically
feasible to restore.  How can we save them for the future generations
and if we do save them will the be appreciated or will they be trashed
by the next generation or the one after that.  I imagine that as long
as there is such a glut as there is today of non-playing instruments,
well you know the rest.

I'd be interested to know if there were any reproducing pianos amongst
the lot -- it seems to me that they're more likely candidates for
restoration, but that's just my 2 cents.

Eliyahu Shahar

 [ Re: "FS Free: Player Pianos in Pennsylvania" in 040123 MMDigest:
 [ the seller, Dave Maloney, is author of "Maloney's Antiques &
 [ Collectibles Resource Directory".  He probably found nothing
 [ of significant value in the collection of 11 old player pianos;
 [ he should know!  ;-)  -- Robbie