Terry Bender said in 040314 MMDigest:

> My wife and I have been thinking of getting a player piano but would
> like to combine our interest in mechanical music with that of our
> interest in the Arts and Crafts (A & C) period in American history
> (about 1895-1914).  The furniture is sometimes called "Mission" or
> "that heavy brown furniture."  Gustav Stickley is the name most often
> associated with this style.
>
> In any case, we would like to find an 88-note player piano in the
> Arts and Crafts (or "Mission") style but, having talked with two
> local experts (East Coast), we are finding that they may be next
> to impossible to find.  We have actually seen one A & C piano
> (non-player) and there was another non-player on e-bay.  One
> collector-dealer has a 65-note A & C player.  We would be interested
> if anyone out there knows of or has seen an 88-note version.

This style lingered longer in England and is usually termed "oak case".
I have a 1927 oak-case Ibach Themodist 88-note upright and a few years
ago I went to see a 1914 oak-case Gotha Steck 88-note Themodist grand
for sale only a mile from my house.  The Gotha works specialised in
fancy cases.  These pianos are still "out there".

As a movement, A & C petered out in England round about 1928.  My
father was a personal friend of one of its later craftsmen, the joiner
Edward Barnsley, and I have inherited two bedsteads and a chest of
drawers of 1923 which I'm told are now as valuable as Chippendale.
On this account I suspect the "Ibachiola" (the logo on its case)
upright has slightly more than junk status.

Barnsley stayed in business until his death c. 1975 but two chairs from
a set my father bought from him in 1930, now belonging to my sister,
have lost that rustic charm and are merely elegant.

Dan Wilson, London