anybody seen one of these?

[Susan Kline]

At 07:02 AM 7/8/98 PDT, Ron wrote:

>A friend called me up to come look at a piano that she found. (yup, in 
>the garbage)  As she described it over the phone; short keyboard on top 
>with wires cut, pedals below on left side, I stopped her to ask if she 
>was sure this wasn't an organ.  No, she said it has 88 keys and plays 
>without plugging it in.  Intrigued, I went right over.  Found a Starck 
>spinet #185834 (1964 ish) with an organ installation.  Nice job, short 
>keyboard set into the case where the music rack normally mounts, with a 
>1" dowel set in front kindof like a wrist rest; this spins and is wired 
>in as a volume control.  Some bass pedals starting where the "soft" 
>pedal would be and extending to the left.  Amp/ guts tucked in on the 
>left wall.  I've never seen anything like this!  Was this common?  Did 
>factories do it?  Any value here?  (the piano has some string rust, one 
>broken, but in pretty good shape for being in a garage for a long time.  
>She is going to repair the legs and touch up the finish, and then call 
>me to service this thing.  She's not looking to sell, more just curious 
>about what she stumbled into.  I told her I would post it to the list 
>and get back to her.
>
>
>Thanks a bunch!
>Ron Koval
>Curie High School
>Chicago, IL

-----------------------------------------------

Hi, Ron

I haven't seen one of these, but I did attempt to tune a Janssen console
with a built in organ (factory original.) All the organ guts were mounted
down below, and one could tune the twelve notes with an Allen key mounted
on the back of the kneeboard. Nothing would do, of course, but that I
should tune the darned organ and try it out to see if it would work with
the piano. The piano had been a bear to tune, by the way.

Fair warning: this organ ran off vacuum tubes. For the first two or three
minutes everything sounded just fine. Then the heat from the tubes threw
the tuning right on its ear. I came back the next day and tuned the piano
part all over again, :-(, and warned the owner not to use the organ if he
wanted to play the piano later.

Best wishes,

Susan


Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com