Name This Instrument

[Les Smith]

Hi, Sy.

During the early part of the century it was possible to buy grand and
upright pianos, player pianos and organs  from Sears and Roebuck. These
instruments were available from the stores, or they could be purchased
by catalog, if you happened to live in the boondocks. (BTW, during this
time one could purchase several complete pre-fab homes through the cata-
log as well!) The name on all these instruments was "Beckwith". In terms
of quality, these were just about what one would expect from Sears, in
other words, bottom of the barrel. Rarely does one find a Beckwith grand
or upright piano that is worth rebuilding. Occasionally, however, one
does encounter a Beckwith  player piano outfitted with either a Standard
or Amphion player action (they used others, too) that is rebuildable, but
they are the exception, rather than the rule. Beckwith organs were similar
in quality to Beckwith pianos. At the time these were being marketed, it
was not uncommon to find an organ in an upright piano case. Sears sold a
bunch of them over the years. At one time they were supposed to be moving
15,000 Beckwith organs a year. There is not much of a market for reed
organs, anymore--Beckwiths, or otherwise. If you want to sell it, you'll
probably do better if you advertise it as an antique, rather than a musi-
cal instrument. If you wait long enough, you may find someone who just
fell off the banana boat that might be willing to pay $200, or so for it,
but that's about it. One of the big problems with reed organs is that it's
virtually impossible to find anyone to work on them anymore and parts are
all but unobtainable. Lastly "Manualo" was a type of player made by
Baldwin. I hope this helps.

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net

On Fri, 11 Oct 1996, Sy Zabrocki wrote:

> One of my customers has an unusual instrument. I promised him I would use this media to at least find out it's proper name.
>
> It looks just like an old upright piano but it is an organ. The name on the fallboard is Sears & Roebuck. The cabinet is mahogany with some flower type designs in the music board. It has 88 keys. The left right pedals are actually treadles and the middl
e pedal is a coupler. There are three stops which pull out like an old reed organ. There are probably three or four sets of reeds. It still plays quite well.
>
> This is about the third one of these I've found down through the years. I've seen a couple also that looked like an small old square grand. I thought there was a name like "manualo" or something similar for these instruments.
>
> Naturally this owner is curious if there is antique value. He would like any information that might be out there in musicland.
>
> Help us out on the name if possible please.
>
> Sy Zabrocki
>
>