>Greetings all, > Would somebody that has ANY experience with these things give me a rough >idea of value for the following? >I have been asked to give an "Independent Estimated Value" for a donation. >Thanks >Ed Foote RPT > > Storey & Clark pump organ > > > The organ is a single manual, mahogany cased > >instrument. It is in excellent playing condition (all > >notes and stops work), but for a small hole in the bellows. > >It plays, but you have a work up a lather to keep it going. > >That's probably not a terrible drawback since it should perhaps have a >suction blower > >installed on it anyway. It also looks great, except that > >someone sometime removed the candleholders on top > >(unnecessary, and you won't know it unless you knew the > >model). All in all, it's not the fanciest organ from that > >period, but not the plainest either: probably a mid-range > >instrument. > >Ed Foote RPT Hi Ed, These old things all fit the above description. They sit in a corner unused for eighty years until someone buys them at usually too great an expense and hauls them home. Wow, it still works! But the more they play, the more the old petrified leather and rubber flakes off and falls apart, and the faster they have to pump to stay ahead of the leaks. Much too soon, they no longer can and THEN they call to find out what it costs to get them working again. Can't be much, you know, because it worked fine last year. They have no established market value whatsoever, all need rebuilt (even if they currently "work"), and are only worth what the buyer's glandular secretions determine. For a glorified harmonica, they're pretty neat, but only to a very small number of scattered (and cheap) deviants. I've seen them go for anything from free to around $3,000 for a big ornate one. $200 or under is probably about right for this one if the prospective buyer wants to get in under $2,000 total to get it working without refinishing it. Ron N
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