The Californians here are probably joining me in mourning the passing of Huell Howser. It's not easy trying to get something about Huell on topic in a PianoWorld forum, but this comes close.


Which begs the question, what the heck is that, and where can I get one?

And to think some neighbors complain about pianos making too much noise.

thats intense!

I love it, now that's a fun instrument!

And I thought organists had it bad!

LMAO that's quite the piano player! He's got every imaginable instrument attached to that poor old piano! LOL

I'm a collector of antique automated music machines, slot machines and jukeboxes and I gotta get me one of those!!!

Right now the prize of my collection is a 1913 Mills Violano-Virtuoso that plays piano/violin duets like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1whDlSUBUc

That's a very cool machine! Steve, you must have a really crowded house.

That is a photoplayer, or in its proper use, a nickelodeon player. It is a player piano made for accompanying silent movies. (A nickelodeon or nickel odeon was actually a theater where people paid a nickel to get in and watch a movie. The song Put Another Nickel In misuses the term, attributing it to a coin-operated player.)

They are rare because most of them wore out from use and were discarded at the end of the silent era.

Steve,

Do you know about the Nethercutt Collection? It's a remarkable place in Saugus CA. It's better known for it's cars, all antique, all collectable and all fully functioning in showroom condition. On the 3rd floor is a collection of automated music making machines again all fully functioning and fully restored.

Gary,

California has a deep and fascinating history and Huell did a lot to teach us what was interesting about little places that you might never have known about otherwise. I think part of his appeal was that no matter how big a place or structure he was "visiting" he never moved far from the human scale. Instead of quoting numbers, he would want to know "what was it like to work in a tunnel that long?"

Huell Howser is a great loss. He will be missed, and like Jack Horkheimer or Fred Rogers, nobody will be able to replace him.

There is another great collection of mechanized instruments in the 'Streets of Yesteryear' museum at the House on the Rock attraction near Spring Green Wisconsin.

KurtZ, the Nethercutt collection is in Sylmar, California.