Original Catalogue Specifications:
-
Philipps
serial or work #???? stamped on chassis.
- Revolver Mechanism (roll changer) #445
- Date or date code cast into piano harp: 14 . xx . 09.
- Integral case and chassis format, with animated scenic effects.
- Standard 6 station, friction drive revolver mechanism (roll changer).
- Round belt/chain & sprocket reduction for feeder (pump) crankshaft.
- Pneumatic lock and cancel register controls.
- Uses Wurlitzer Mandolin PianOrchestra or Phillips PM (Pianella Mandoline)
rolls.
- Height: 10 ft.
Width: 6 ft. 8 in.
Depth: 3 ft. 4 in.
Shipping weight: 2600 lbs.
61 Note Musical Scale:
- A high grade (61-note) Piano, with Mandolin attachment
- 30 Violins (metal violin pipes, or gamba)
- 30 Violas (wooden violin pipes with brass freins)
- 24 Violoncellos (12 wooden viola with brass freins & 12 wooden violoncello
pipes with wood rollers)
- 12 Piccolos (wooden flute pipes)
- 18 Flutes (wooden flute pipes)
- Xylophone, 30 bars (reiterating action)
- Chimes, 13 bars (orchestra bells)
- Snare drum (reiterating action)
- Bass drum, with cymbal
- Kettle drum (tympani effect using two beaters)
- Triangle (reiterating action)
- Tambourine (reiterating action)
- Castanets (reiterating action)
Pipework Notes:
- The basic pipework specifications mentioned above (excluding any breakdown
explanations within parenthesis) are exactly as Wurlitzer described them
in their catalogue. Wurlitzer was big on flowery advertising hype, but very
short when it came to accurately describing the actual pipework contents
of a PianOrchestra. Thus, more accurately, the pipework of the Style 29-C
consists of three ranks, front to back, as follows:
- 42-note viola rank, consisting of 30 wooden violins with brass freins
plus 12 wooden viola pipes with brass freins.
- 42-note violin rank, consisting of 30 metal violins (gamba), plus
12 wooden violoncello pipes with wooden rollers instead of freins.
- 30-note flute, consisting of a 30 note rank of wooden harmonic flutes
with nodule hole. Wurlitzer describes the top octave (or top 12-notes)
as 12 piccolos, and the remaining lower pipes as 18 flutes.
- The Wurlitzer concept of suggesting, for instance, that a particular
PianOrchestra contained 30 violins is a gross misnomer, unless you expect
all of the 30 violins to simultaneously be playing a consecutive and different
note, which would tend to create a cacophony of non-musical noise. Closer
to reality, and depending upon the arrangement of the music roll, a 30 note
violin rank would ideally play no more than a few coordinated notes across
its entire scale at any one time. Thus, it would be more accurate to say
that a single 30-note rank of violin pipes represented the sound of one
violin (or maybe two violins if the musical score is arranged appropriately
to produce this kind of effect).
Special Lighting Effects:
- Centered in the top center portion of the case is an animated scenic
effect. It consists of a rural setting featuring a large waterfall painted
on thin, vellum type paper, stretched over a wood frame, much like a painter's
canvas, and protected on the front side by a sheet of glass. On the back
side of the vellum paper, all portions of the scene are blocked out with
by an opaque black paint, except for those areas of the waterfall where
back lighted special animation effects are desired. Immediately behind the
transparent portion of the scene, sturdily mounted to the chassis, is a
wooden framework that supports a series of electric light bulbs, which are
located between a pair of wide, wooden rollers. When the instrument is operating,
the soft warmth of the electric lights illuminates the waterfall from the
backside, as the two round-belt motivated wood rollers, which support a
continuous fabric belt made of a loosely woven material similar to cheese
cloth, are caused to move so that the belting facing the scene is descending.
Dabbed on the cloth belt are numerous elongated splotches of thick black
paint, which, due to the electric illumination inside the cloth belt and
its movement, give the effect of water rippling over the waterfall. Enhancing
the novelty of the animation, a small rotating drum pinned to operate two
or three mercury-pot type electrical switches sequences the various electric
lamps situated behind the waterfall portion of the scene.
Chronological History:
Circa 1909
Manufactured by J.D. Philipps & Sons, Bockenheim, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
Circa 1909/1910
Imported and sold by Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, New York.
Circa 1910/1911
Shipped to Los Angeles, California.
It is unknown who received the PianOrchestra in Los Angeles. Two possible
candidates are:
- The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of California. It is unknown when Wurlitzer
first opened a store in Los Angeles. However during the twenties, the company
(I.H. Lyons, Vice-President and General Manager), maintained some kind of
sales facility on the ground floor of the rather impressive Wurlitzer building.
This building was, and still is, located at 816 South Broadway in the downtown
Los Angeles entertainment district, although it is no longer associated
with Wurlitzer. The original high-relief cartouche emblazoned with the Wurlitzer
name is still beautifully intact above the street level retail shops. The
building, built in 1923, was designed by Walker and Eisen, and is a 12-story
Spanish Renaissance polychrome terra cotta structure with decorative bands
and arched windows. Among the decorations are various musical instruments:
violin, drum, horn, Irish harp and lyre. Interspersed with the musical instruments
are small red medallions bearing the names of famous composers: Verdi, Mozart
and Bizet. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of California was still listed
at the Broadway address into the early 1930s.
- William L. Glockner, a Musical Instrument Dealer, (a.k.a., Glockner
Music) located at 917 South Broadway, later moved (circa 1919) to 325 New
High Street (now Spring Street) in Downtown Los Angeles, California.
Circa 1911/1912
Banner Theater, Los Angeles, California.
Little is known about the instrument during its stay at the Banner Theater,
other than it sat on the second floor mezzanine and entertained patrons.
Circa 1952
Bob Huish collection, Anaheim, California.
According to the book, "Music Boxes, Their Lore and Lure," by Helen and John
Hoke, "Years went by while collectors ran down every lead for the vanished machine.
In 1952, during the remodeling of the [Banner] theater, workmen were astonished
to uncover the long-lost, walled-up Orchestrion and Robert Huish spent eighteen
months painstakingly restoring it."
Durrell Armstrong, Wichita, Kansas, relates some interesting details regarding
the discovery of the style 29-C PianOrchestra, one that corroborates some tidbits
of information that I had heard myself from Mrs. A.C. Raney (Raney collection,
Whittier, California) in 1954. In fact, when I had expressed an interest in
the 29-C PianOrchestra to Mrs. Raney, I was literally warned by her, "to stay
away from that machine, as it was trouble." I did not understand what she meant
by trouble, but she was so forceful in her admonition, that I did not ask anything
more. It was not until much later, when I learned about the serious problem
between Huish and Knott's Berry Farm, his employer, that her remark made sense.
As the story goes: It was known to several collectors, including Bob Huish,
that a Wurlitzer PianOrchestra had once been located in the old Banner Theater,
an early nickelodeon theater located at the corner of 4th and Main
Streets in downtown Los Angeles. No one, however, could remember what had happened
to the machine. It had simply vanished without a trace. Huish, sniffing around
the old theater for any hint as to what had happened to it, was tapping on a
wall on the mezzanine, where the PianOrchestra had supposedly been located.
Detecting a dead space in the wall, Huish was certain that the machine was secreted
away behind it. After some fancy talking, Bob Huish got permission to poke a
small hole in the wall. His suspicion was correct, through the little hole he
could clearly see the long forgotten orchestrion. When the bricked-up wall was
torn down, the derelict orchestrion was revealed, and beside it was a pile of
music rolls. It was such an unusual discovery that a news story about the fantastic
PianOrchestra long lost behind a brick wall appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
Why anyone went to the trouble to wall-in the PianOrchestra, instead of just
hauling it away as junk, as was the case with so many other similar instruments,
is not known. A possible answer comes from another passage in Hokes book: "When
talking pictures came in, the owner [of the Banner theater] was faced with a
giant music-maker he could not use, and it was an unbelievably formidable task
either to move or dismantle it. He decided to wall it in, and did so!"
Durrell Armstrong remembers visiting Bob Huish in December of 1954, and hearing
the 29-C PianOrchestra play. It was the centerpiece of the house, Bob Huish
remarking that he had built his house "around" it. Durrell thought so, too,
since "the top of the instrument disappeared into the ceiling, and seemed to
be holding up the house."
The following excerpts, which have been edited for conciseness and clarity,
are taken from an article in The [Orange County] REGISTER, dated October 20,
1954. They help to provide some sense of Bob Huish:
|
History Pages Relived
In County Residence Of Antique Collector
There's an old axiom, lost somewhere in the antiquity of folklore.
It says there are not secrets about any man. Just visit his home and
you've held a mirror to his personality. If that age-old sociological
ruling is true, the personality of Robert Huish, 4O-year old World War
II veteran, is a kaleidoscope of unusual incongruities.
Huish is a husky, sophisticated outdoorsman, whose life experience
has reflected a sobriety for the present and an intense interest in
the future. His Ocean View home is a page ripped from some photo album
long past. Scattered about the neat six-room home at 16561 Graham St.,
Ocean View, is one of the nation's finest private collections of antique
music boxes. They stand in every room and line the walls, pushing the
home's modern appliances back into "deserved" obscurity.
Self-described as a "cynic," Huish explains, "I like mechanical things
of beauty because they're predictive -- they aren't like people. The
ex-military cop is one of Southern California's two men capable of maintenance
and reconstruction of mechanical museum pieces. He is employed by the
Knott's Berry Farm to keep in repair the "Ghost Town's" hundreds of
items of antiquity.
 When
questioned about his "collecting obsession" he explains, "I don't have
any monetary values - -I wouldn't sell an item for any price. I have
no more than a normal interest in history. It could be the challenge
of searching out lost antiques, but it isn't. I think it must be the
satisfaction of rebuilding something that appears to be junk into something
that is valuable and beautiful." Probably independent financially he
ruefully added, "It is smart business though. Its like an investment
and one that matures at a higher rate of interest each year." Then turning
to a 21-inch television set in his living room he made a point, "Look
at that contraption. $400 and it loses value each year."
Conversationally speaking, the father of two boys is well-informed
on current. topics from United Nations to the Republican farm program.
Although he doesn't subscribe to any newspapers or national magazines
and his reading is limited to technical manuals and an array of collectors
and dealers' magazines. In addition to the Horseless Carriage he is
an active member of the American Society of Watch and Clock Collectors
and plans to make a trip to the convention of the National Assn. of
Music Box Collectors in the near future.
It all started about seven years ago when Huish was surveying his
life as a master jeweler, chemist, motorcycle shop owner, soldier and
laborer. "I wanted something that I could do to spend my free time.
I bought an old music box and repaired it. From there the hobby grew
into a collection." But collecting isn't easy, Huish suggested. In acquisition
of his prize possession, "a 20 ft. Wurlitzer theater organ and music
box," he told of. years of search. Finally he located the machine walled
up in the old Banner Theater building in Los Angeles. "Just to get it
on the main floor from the balcony cost $135. When I got it home it
was completely torn apart. It took several months to get it back together."
The machine now stands in the younger Huish's bedroom: In a flecked
black hard-wood finish, it looks like an overgrown record player. Along
the top runs a string of multi-colored lights. It produces full orchestration
and was used extensively as musical background to silent films and in
skating rinks. When playing it has a deep melodic texture and produces
the sounds of a full 115 pipe organ, drums, piano, triangle, "xylaphone,"
"tamperine" and some string instruments. It plays six long rolls and
changes automatically.
Although he doesn't know the value of the collection or, won't tell,
he carries thousands of dollars of insurance on his prizes. "If I knew
how much they were worth it might scare me," he joked. A full-sized
description of all the works in his collection would frighten the pencil
end off a writer for the American Society of Antique Musical Instruments
and Care Of manual.
Warned that publicity might bring throngs of sightseers to his home
he shrugged, "So what? They're just people and that's what they build
houses for." Expansively he added, "besides I like people as well as
I do music boxes and they're welcome here anytime." And that's a compliment
coming from the unusual Mr. Huish!
|
Some of the comments in the above newspaper excerpt take on a new meaning
in light of the tragic story that follows next.
Circa 1955/56
Ownership acquired by Knotts Berry Farm, Buena Park, California.
The events that led up to Knotts Berry Farm owning the PianOrchestra were
both unfortunate and tragic. What allegedly happened between Huish and Knotts
was no secret to many Southern California collectors. Although I had heard parts
of the story from both Mrs. A.C. Raney and Herbert N. Vincent (who was in the
business of rebuilding coin-pianos and band organs) in 1954-55, it is Durrell
Armstrongs recounting, as told by Orville Cooper, that I am using here. Durrell
had been in contact with Huish, and had actually visited him in his home in
December of 1954, not too long before Huishs growing legal problem with Knott's
Berry Farm came to a head.
According
to the late Orville Cooper, who was a close friend of Huish, and who had apparently
helped him remove the 29-C PianOrchestra from the Banner Theater, Bob Huish
had been the caretaker of the coin operated pianos at Knotts Berry Farm. When
Huish went on vacation for two weeks, someone else collected the money from
the coin-pianos. The trouble began when Walter Knott realized that the receipts
for the two weeks Huish was absent were double that normally collected. Suspecting
foul play, Walter Knott confronted Bob Huish upon his return to work, and not
wanting to prosecute, he offered to let Huish repay the money allegedly taken.
Another, and rather different, story about how Mr. Huish allegedly got into
legal trouble is recalled by Q. David Bowers. The firm of Hathaway & Bowers,
Inc. (1967 - 1972) had limited business dealings with Knott's Berry Farm, but
during the course of this interaction came the story that Bob Huish had been
caught swiping gold nuggets that Knott's Berry Farm used to "plant" for paying
tourists who "panned for gold" at the popular gold-panning amusement attraction.
But whether this story is true, or not, or whether both this and the above version
have some validity, cannot be confirmed. What is known for certain is that the
outcome of the dispute between Huish and Knott's Berry Farm resulted in a tragic
ending for Mr. Huish.
The exact chain of events that followed is unknown, but during this period
of accusation and growing tension, Durrell Armstrong had agreed to buy a group
of Wurlitzer Concert PianOrchestra rolls from Huish. Before the rolls were shipped,
however, Durrell thinks this was in 1956, Bob Huish shot himself in the head,
ending the life of an apparently very talented but disillusioned man. When Durrell
Armstrong contacted Huish's wife, she remembered the sale of the rolls to Durrell
and shipped them off to him without delay. The 29-C PianOrchestra, as part of
a negotiated settlement with the Huish estate, became the property of Knotts
Berry Farm.
In
May of 1965 I had my uncle, Richard F. Hathaway, telephone Walter Knott regarding
the 29-C PianOrchestra. My Grandfather, Jesse E. Hathaway, first met Walter
Knott during one of his circa 1900 bicycle trips from Los Angeles to Julian,
California, to supervise and assist in the de-flooding of gold/silver mines
in the area. Walter was a bellboy in a small hotel in Pomona, California, where
my Grandfather stayed overnight on his way to and from Julian. Walter Knott
began his farming career in Santa Fe Springs, under the name of Preston & Knott,
on property that belonged to my Grandfather. Then, when the partnership fell
apart, Walter moved to Buena Park, starting a Boysenberry farm. Thus, my grandparents
and parents had intimately known the Knott family. That is why I had my "Uncle
Dick" telephone Walter Knott.
Agreeing
to look into the matter, Walter Knott responded to my uncle in writing, with
a long and friendly letter, reminiscing about old, mutual acquaintances. Only
the first paragraph refers to the orchestrion, and is as follows: "It is true,
I find that we do have the machine that you refer to and due to its size and
height, we have never put it out although our man has nearly completed the overhaul.
When I saw the room it is taking up in his shop, I thought he would be delighted
to get rid of it, but he was not. For one thing, the one Terry has is pretty
big too, and almost as high. He has the idea that it is worth a minimum of $3500.00--money
must be getting awfully cheap."
Since that time, the PianOrchestra has been displayed intermittently at Knotts,
for certain during the years 1982 through 1985, when it was on display in a
museum building, but mostly it remained stored in a damp and cluttered warehouse.
Circa 1998
Yaffe collection, Florida.
The
instrument was removed from the Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, California,
warehouse area immediately after purchase and then shipped to Ron Cappel, Atascadero,
California, for a complete cosmetic and mechanical restoration. As of the year
2007, work on the casework has been completed, as well as the meticulous and
very time consuming work on many of the interior components.
In January, of 2008, the spectacularly restored Style 29C Mandolin PianOrchestra
was once again back to beautiful playing condition, and its quality and appearance
rivaled that of a brand new orchestrion. Then, after partial disassembly and
careful packing the grand machine was ready for shipment to its eagerly awaiting
owner in Florida.
Anyone
familiar with the PianOrchestra prior to its total restoration can attest to
its thoroughly worn out condition due to many decades of commercial use and
abuse. numerous original parts were missing, all of which were painstakingly
recreated right down to the smallest detail. For instance, all lead tubing and
the special Philipps wide-radius brass fittings were carefully re-manufactured,
with the large cardboard wind and vacuum trunks re-created in the same style
as the original. The piano was so worn out that it required many new parts,
and the main valve chest/stack assembly below it had to be re-constructed, using
newly stamped valve plates replicating the original ones. Additionally, the
animated scene had to be re-created, since the original scene and all related
components were missing without a trace. All in all, the meticulous cosmetic
and mechanical restoration was a monumental undertaking, but one that fortuitously
came together easily and magnificently. Without a doubt, the PianOrchestra is
once again as perfectly beautiful as it was when it originally shipped from
the Wurlitzer factory.
Credits:
Written by Terry Hathaway, with information provided
by Durrell Armstrong, Terry Hathaway, Art Reblitz and Brian Smith.
Photographs:
Circa 1912 Wurlitzer catalogue; Art Reblitz; and Brian
Smith.
Additional Resources:
"Music Boxes, Their Lore and Lure," by Helen and John
Hoke, 1957, Hawthorne Books Inc., New York.
