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MUSIC
PLAYER SECTON
NEW YORK, JANUARY 25, 1919
The Unusual Shortage in Player-Pianos Is Causing Many Dealers to Remodel
Their Second-Hand Instruments in an Endeavor to Supply the Demand for
Players, and the Experiment Is Proving Profitable and Well Worth Trying
A reporter for The Review, whose business
it is to keep in very close touch with the re-
tail piano and player trade in the greatest stretch
of retail piano territory to be found in any city
anywhere, tells the writer of this article that a
remarkable demand has recently been noticed
for second-hand player-pianos of the better
grades. Now, of course, it is well known that
the output of new player-pianos has not been
anywhere near the retail demand for them, and
that dealers have been hard put to it to find
anything wherewith to still the clamors of their
customers. As things stand, the second-hand
player-piano has been a necessity of the win-
ter's business, but up till now the general feel-
ing has been that it was a stop-gap only and
not at all to be reckoned with seriously when
normal output had been resumed.
Now if retail customers are going to begin,
no matter how timidly, to ask for high-grade
used player-pianos when they find the cost of
new ones too great—which is about the way the
thing has worked out according to the reports
which reach us—it is quite obvious that the sit-
uation in the public mind concerning the second-
hand player-pianos has altogether changed.
There was a time when the player-piano was
regarded as an experiment pure and simple and
those who bought them did so with emotions
in which curiosity was mingled with anxiety.
It is evident that this time is already passing.
To what extent can the second-hand player-
piano be considered as an important and essen-
tial element in the retail situation? If the peo-
ple now are willing to accept the player-piano
as something both foolproof and standardized,
then plainly the dealers will have no objection
to listing the second-hander as a definite ele-
ment in their stocks.
What Would a Census Show?
As to how many second-hand players the deal-
ers have in their possession at present, opinions
will probably differ, but it is reasonably certain
that if all the "old boys" which are to be found
in the basements of the stores or hidden away
as returned failures in the factories were
dragged out we should have some thousands.
Indeed, every piano with a case big enough to
contain a player action is to-day a precious
thing, for if the old player is too bad it is still
possible to put a new player in. Often the old
player, in the light of later experience, can be
made over and turned into what will be, to all
intents and purposes, a new one.
We believe that if to-day any dealer will go
over the second-hand players he has in his
stock which he has been thinking of letting go
at very low prices and will put them in shape
for his retail trade along somewhat improved
lines, he will obtain much better prices and
much more satisfaction.
The Sixty-five-Noter
A great many 65-nate players were made in
the old days in pianos of the very best makes.
In many cases these have dropped into the dis-
card because their player actions have worn
out. But when we look to see where they have
worn we usually discover that the motor and
the pouches were mainly to blame. Now, if this
be so, the motor can be recovered and the
pouches replaced; unless indeed we have to deal
with one of those impossible old actions in
which the valves were glued in so that the
boards would not come apart. In the latter
case it is a new stack or nothing.
The more modern 65-note players, however,
are often very good indeed in everything save
their age and range. Both these difficulties
can be remedied nevertheless.
Conversions
As for the question of converting 65-note
players into full-sealers, there is something to
be said for the simple method of "tubing over,"
which simply means putting in a new tracker
bar for eighty-eight notes and running the ad-
ditional ducts to tubes which take into corre-
sponding pneumatics an octave higher or lower,
as the case miay be. But this, of course, is
not strictly the thing to do unless the customer
is informed that the instrument is merely
"adapted." If this is done there can be no ob-
jection whatever to selling second-hand 65-note
player-pianos treated in this way. •
There is another way of getting at the trou-
ble.
Old 65-note actions otherwise in good
condition or capable of being made so can be
converted into real out-and-out 88-noters by the
process of adding a few pneumatics on either
end. This requires a special form of pneumatic-
and-valve in one piece, and such a mechanism
has been designed and successfully applied.
But this demands the facilities of a good work-
shop and is really a job for a factory. Where
the player-piano is in excellent condition, the
tubing-over process, if it be duly explained to
the buyer, does seem to be unobjectionable.
Old 88-ers
Old 88-note players, that is to say, players
which have been rented, or turned in for part
payment on grands or reproducing pianos, ex-
ift in pretty large numbers. One is led to be-
lieve, from what can be seen any day in the
workshops of large retail stores, that these in-
struments would fetch better prices than one
usually finds asked for them if more trouble
were taken in giving special technical attention
to the good makes among them. When an
ordinary player-piano of first-class make has
been exchanged for a grand player, for a repro-
ducing piano or for a small grand, it is left on
the dealer's hands to sell as a second-hander.
But it is noticeable that the amount of over-
hauling such instruments get is too much de-
voted to the case and the hammers, and too
little altogether to the player action.
Repairs
The first and greatest enemy of second-hand
player-pianos is air-seepage.
"Leaks" in a
player-piano are from the inside out, not from
the outside in, please remember.
Now this
leakage outwards comes from three separate and
probable causes. One is the hardening of pack-
ing leather at joints. The other is from the
porosity of well-seasoned wood. The third is
from the wearing of cloth at vulnerable edges.
In addition to these points the possible stick-
ing of valve on guide pins must be considered,
as well as the cracking of tubes and the giv-
ing way of soldered joints.
Now if every second-hand player brought into
the store were carefully tested for tightness,
and if it needed any sort of rejuvenating, taken
in hand after the special ideas described above,
there would be less trouble by far. Shellacking
the boards will make them once more air-tight,
and hardened leather can be easily replaced,
while, as remarked above, motor pneumatics can
be recovered, and so can the bellows-boards
themselves if this seems necessary.
Modern
pouch leather, too, is very strong, flexible and
light, so that a pouch-board recovered in this
way will be as good as new.
When valves have been reregulated and made
to work freely, motors timed and everything put
together tight and clean, a second-hand player
even six years old, if it were well made in the
first place, will be perfectly good once more.
Of course, dealers suffer from a lack of tech-
nical training among tuners and repairmen, but
if a dealer expects a tuner to go to New York
to study player work and then does not want
to pay him anything extra for the extra knowl-
edge he has acquired, the kind of good work we
have discussed is not likely to be available.
At the present time every dealer ought to
search his stock carefully to see what he has
available in the way of second-hand players,
for these will likely be precious before long.