Dana Minkler wrote in 080626 MMDigest:

> I have some "Telelectric" brass piano rolls [65-note] and
> would like to sell them or buy a piano to play them.

The Telelectric was not a piano, but a separate unit that played
the rolls and was attached to a piano via a thick cable.  The cable,
in turn, was attached to a bank of electromagnets that went under
the keys.  The magnets pulled down the keys via a small steel piece
embedded in the underside of each key.

We had a Telelectric many years ago but not the magnets.  Before my
father could fabricate such a bank he passed away and we eventually
donated the unit to a museum.

The Telelectric was a casualty of WW1: the rolls were brass, and
to ensure that our military had enough brass for cartridge and shell
casings, there was a huge tax placed on brass that was held in stock.
As the rolls are a pound or more each (as I recall), you can imagine
what that did to the stock of brass rolls!

Good luck on finding a player and magnets, Dana.  It's a small footnote
in the history of mechanical music but an interesting one, I think.
I was always sorry that we never got our Telelectric going.

Ross Schacher
Marlboro, Massachusetts
dwarven1@verizon.net.geentroep