Hello all again.¶ Its your correspondant in the UK again. One of the largest private collections of player-pianos in Europe could well go up for sale this year. There are two wharehouses full. I would guess that there are seventy or so mainly 88 note pumpers and a few Duo-Arts for good measure. Ther...

Troy Taylor asks about the harmonica with rolls. This is the famous Rolmonica, made in America from at least 1928. It was heavily advertised in comic books of the day for $1 and the rolls sold for 10 cents each. This was one of the earliest commercial uses of Bakelite. The Rolmonica is a great novel...

•Greetings to all. I will probably be sorry I waded into this topic, but I have been purchasing player rolls, new and used, for at least fifty years. Reading all the recent letters and calling up my personal experiences of past years, I truly see nothing new. Everything suggested has been done befor...

•I was asked by some readers to give some more insights about MIDI. As I get lots of help from people when I need it, I happily will share some of my knowledge if it is of any help to some of you. Just give some direction if you want my views on it. First, if you don't mind, let me give you some bac...

•My friend and MMD subscriber Alan Mueller sent me the following information about Fred Vokoun that he found on Ancestry.com from the 1920 census: Fred Vokoun, age 43, birth year about 1877, birthplace Ohio, home in 1920: Cleveland Ward 13, Cuyahoga [county] Ohio, street: Dolloff Road, house number...

•I was at our local AMICA Christmas meeting last weekend and I saw a really interesting Hallmark Disney Christmas ornament. Glenn and Shirley Roat offered one of these ornaments as part of the gift exchange. It was a six-inch tall figure of Mickey Mouse playing a saxophone. Cute, and it sounds prett...

•My wife and I just returned from a fantastic two-week vacation in France, and I wanted to pass along information on a wonderful museum that we stumbled upon in the city of Limoges. We were just walking around the city, after appeasing the ladies who were shopping for Limoges China (the city's main ...

Forwarded Message: • From: dfuller@teleport.com To: ALL Orig: MBNET Subj: Info needed re Player Har Area: 2-rec.antiques Date: 02/12/96 ============================================================================= •My wife's father gave her a player harmonica some years ago. It is like a player pian...

•In the Digest of 15 Dec, Jack Littlepage was asking for information about a reed pipe organette carrying the name Clariona. He informs us that the instrument has an inscription, that says: "Wholesale Depot No. 25, East Fourteenth St. New York City", as well as the name "Merrill Gally". He is asking...

•How can the (London) Player Piano Group (PPG) celebrate the Pianola Centenary in 1999 when it was launched in 1897 ? Answer: Great Britain remained in the Dark Ages until November 1899, when the Pianola went on sale at the offices of George Wight, the Aeolian Company's London agent, in Bond Street...

•Hello all, I totally agree with the sentiments expressed in the letter raising issues related to the ethics of certain fair organ restorations that was originally published in 'Worlds Fair', and am pleased that a number of respected organ builders have chosen to publicly speak out on the issue. In ...

•"Put ice in your saxes, freeze that trumpets blare; It's too darn hot for a hot tune - Play me a frigid air. Fan your clarinetter, I'm sure that he won't care; It's too darn hot for a hot tune - Play me a frigid air. "The Eskimos would love it, up north in their hometown, But I don't think much of ...

•Hello all, We all know the class trope of Art Deco facades having dummy saxophones with keys that are actuated in time with saxophone pipes behind the facade. In the prewar [WW2] era, the Decap firm experimented with a device that made the saxes in the facade actually play! This system is called th...

•Hi All, I know I said I would write while I was in Missouri to report on the progress of 'The Ding-A-Ling'. Okay, so I lied. But I was having such a great time with Craig Brougher (and his wife, Ellen-very nice woman!), George Bogatko and Andy Taylor (and family; Chris and 'Benny') that I simply di...

•> From: avery@hyperlinx.net.geentroep (Avery Kravitz) > To: rolls@foxtail.com > Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 02:38:56 -0500 > Subject: interested in trumpet and clarinet > > Hello, I am a professional musician and would like to rig up > a trumpet or clarinet to play using artificial lips. Could you > hel...

•We have several orphan disc music box discs which we hope someone may want: (1) We have eight zinc Celesta 15-5/8" discs which look in very good condition. The German Celesta machine was a competitor with Polyphon, etc, but a much smaller operation. These discs have both peripheral drive (same as P...

•The question about Hawaiian rolls reminds me of the tremendous amount of "World Music" featured on Edison's Phonograph cylinders and Diamond Disks in the 1910 - 1929 era. I've got enough Hawaiian cylinders and disks that I won't buy any more. Plus quite a few featuring groups of marimbas (the Mexic...

•Have you noticed? Whether the audience is of two or thirty people, as soon as a mechanical music instrument begins to play, after a few seconds, inevitably, one, two or three voices arise, covering the music partially or completely while they - Admire: "It's beautiful! And this facade! These figure...

•[ George Bogatko inquired about mechanical music in South Dakota. ] Greetings George and list, I don't know how nearby is 350 miles, but the Shrine to Music Museum (SMM) is in Vermillion SD, about six hours from Rapid City. Their Internet site is http://www.usd.edu/smm/index.html They have a few "a...

•Enclosed is the letter that Mr. Kenneth Scherer of Embarrass, Minnesota sent me after I purchased his Cable Carola Inner Player in 1989. I spoke with him last week and received his permission to offer it to you for publication. I missed this piano at his estate auction in 1985 as I had to leave to ...