Hi List: A customer of mine whose father once had a small music store sold Jesse French pianos. After finishing my work on his piano he told me he had something to show me. He presented me with a small case, 9"x 5"x 2", covered in brown snake skin naugahyde with a gold latch/lock set. Inside the velvet lined case was a 3-D viewer with 10 color slides taken at the Jesse French factory in New Castle, Indiana. Also included were 7 color slides of their product line, plus an explanation sheet listing the description for each slide. The store owner had written down the prices next to the description of the pianos, $820 to $1,715 for Mahogany 5' 2" grand. There is an aerial photo of the factory with cars in the lot that look to be 1920-30's. Other factory shots show how curved panels are molded, stringing operation, filing hammers, back construction... all sorts of people clearly visible in almost every factory shot including some women on the line. Each picture is incredibly clear and the whole package has more quality in it then Jesse ever put in their pianos. This thing is really cool. The owner let me borrow it so I could bring it to the next CT chapter meeting for show and tell :) Doug Mahard
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