Hi John, I'm so glad you commented - so your father owned De Nachtegaal? I would love to speak with you about this organ. I have so many questions! [email protected]

It's great to hear from people who are part of the history of this organ! Thanks for your comment.

Hi, I'm in Oregon. Go to Player-Care.com where you'll find a listing of player piano restorers by state. Hopefully you'll find one near you in California.

If you listen to the late great Tom Hazleton’s CDs from there, you’ll notice they added a fair amount of reverb in post production to account for the deep luxuriant carpet everywhere. It doesn’t detract from the instrument or Tom’s playing but you understand why they had to do it once you learn about the carpeting that once was. 😉

I say this because I could see it as a revenue source for you and your collection! Plus it preserves these incredible instruments in a digital era! Allowing people to create their own “Rolls” files to play music with! You could even do all of the different ORoller types! Where when someone is starting up the software they can choose and flip through the different ORollers! Maybe consider contacting KeyScapes! They have a huge virtual library of old and new pianos and keyboards they’ve digitally made and preserved and they can make it work well!

That would certainly be a really interesting project. I built this orchestrion for a customer in San Francisco. If you're serious about this, I could put you in touch with the owner and you can discuss the project with him. The video above was posted when the instrument was in progress. This is its final form and instrumentation: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gqp5qKuUzdGlfGQ.html

I was just thinking the same thing

Hi I have info on Cecilian rolls, although they were generally used on the earlier Farrand Co era of the Cecilian, not really in the later Bush & Lane era (by the time Cecilian were associated with Bush & Lane, their instruments used regular 88-note piano rolls). The early Farrand Cecilian piano players and extremely rare early 65-note player pianos (I have one of the two known) ONLY used the wide format (over 12" wide) graduated-hole-spacing Cecilian rolls, specially made for Farrand by the Connorized Co of NY. Slightly later, their piano players then had interchangeable tracker bars allowing regular Aeolian-format 65-note rolls OR wide Cecilian 65-note rolls to be played. Most of the Farrand Cecilian piano players I know of are like this. I have never seen an 88-note pushup by them and am unsure if any were ever made (no advertising located either). At least four or five generations of player action were used between the Farrand and Bush & Lane eras of the Cecilian. Finally, it should be mentioned that Farrand, in addition to a moderate number of high grade parlor and chapel reed organs, also made an extremely rare player reed organ using Cecilian rolls, called the "Olympia" I *think* (I have to double check my references). I know less than a half dozen od them extant today. For more info, inquire on the Mechanical Music Digest (MMD) and/or the Facebook mechanical music groups ("Player Piano Enthusiast"; "Player Piano Talk"; "Player Piano Roll Sell, Trade and Talk" etc).

There's a separate remote suction pump and blower.

I assume you are talking about the Fotoplayer. The American Orchestra orchestrion uses the box pump in the lower left of the cabinet.

Yes, I built several new ranks of pipes for the Mortier organ.

We'll see