A Letter from Art Reblitz

Dear Seeburg Enthusiast:

I am currently working with a large amount of information about the Marquette, Seeburg, Western Electric and Nelson-Wiggen coin-in-the-slot piano companies, data taken from music trade magazines, photographs, catalogs, U.S. Patent records, personal interviews and other historical records. The outcome of all this dedicated effort promises to be an interesting and comprehensive book and/or a lengthy series of articles on the subject of the Chicago coin piano business from 1905 through 1928. Judging by information discovered to date, Seeburg not only manufactured many of the prettiest-looking and best-sounding coin pianos and orchestrions ever made, but they also made more of them than anyone else in America.

Seeburg probably made between 20,000 and 25,000 automatic musical instruments, which includes those manufacturing under the Western Electric name. In addition to the omnipresent piano serial number, many of these instruments also have a number stamped into the piano stack, either on the front, on top, or on the bleed rail or its cover. After compiling a rudimentary serial number list, it is my hunch that the Seeburg company numbered the piano stacks consecutively from at least 1907 to 1920, if not later. Stack numbers are very common in pre-1920 instruments, and decreasingly common thereafter. For Seeburg instruments with pipe chests, there is usually a number stamped into the top or front of this chest, although in a few cases, however, this particular serial number has been stamped into the bottom of the pipe chest.

After about 1920, most, if not all, coin switch mechanisms (located in the bottom of the piano) had a paper sticker with two patent dates and a serial number. The sticker's serial number was a way of keeping track of patent royalties owed to the Mills Novelty Company, who owned the two indicated coin switch patents.

Many post-1920 Seeburg pianos also have a rubber-stamped date (i.e. JUN 6, 1922) imprinted on the bottom side of the piano hammers. Finding this number takes some careful looking, but it's extremely important that I determine as many hammer set numbers as possible, and soon!. Time is of the essence here, since the remaining instruments that still retain this number (now some 70+ to 90 years old) are dwindling rapidly, due to the necessity of having to replace the aging and worn out piano hammers.

The Seeburg and Western Electric information I have been compiling over the last ten years is still too incomplete to draw many useful conclusions from it. So, I need your help in collecting additional information in the form of serial numbers, which can still be easily found in many Seeburg and Western Electric pianos. With your help, my next step will be to finish compiling and analyzing the large collection of piano stack numbers, pipe chest numbers and coin switch numbers for as many piano serial numbers as I can. If you can help, would you please check for and provide me with as many Seeburg and/or Western Electric numbers as possible. This serial numbers I need are as follows:

For convenience in supplying this information please use the Seeburg Survey Questionnaire and/or the PRINTABLE SURVEY FORM.

Please note:

Please be very careful to distinguish between die-stamped 3's and 8's, which can sometimes be very difficult to read correctly.

Sincerely,

Art Reblitz