I was given a Straube player piano about a week ago.  It was in a
public room and needs a fair amount of work to get the piano playing.
It has broken-off hammers (some of which are missing) and needs a good
deal of case work.  It was stored in a room by a racquet-ball court,
and for some reason the fallboard was pulled out of it by the roots!
Its bellows air-motor and a few other things were recovered a long time
ago, and of course white glue was used.  The striking pneumatics had
nothing done to them though.

I had one guy tell me to shy away from it, because these pianos have
solid wood pinblocks.  He had re-strung one, and the bass end of the
pinblock split on it.  This one looks to be like that.  He also said
that he has seen two players like this one and they don't track rolls
very well.  This one does have a really odd tracking system, with one
large pneumatic and a bunch of ball bearings on each end where the roll
would go.

Anyway, I honestly don't know what to think of it, and with all the
piano work that needs to be done to it, it's a little hard for me to
decide what to do.  I've heard Straube pianos, and they always seem to
be nice-sounding instruments.  But this is the first Straube player
I've seen.  It has those odd swinging valves in the player action as
well.  Any thoughts on one of these animals?

Earl Hennagir