Airless Electric Organ

When I first started playing the piano I had a great aunt donate me this ridiculously comical electric organ. When you play it it sounds something like a mini jet engine booting up. When you play the stupid thing, the more you play the less noise it makes. It literally runs out of air. Any guesses on the brand of it. I don't have it to look at right now as it is hidden in our garage back home. I think it might be haunted. It has to be at least 60 or 70 years old. I swear!

I would guess it was not an organ, but a harmonium, a distant relative to the accordion. The harmonium used a reserve bag of air, like a bagpipe, to blow on the free reeds to produce it's sound The electric organ overtook the harmonium in the 1930's, but they were produced in the US until the 1950's. They are quite popular in India and continue to be, although the harmonium currently in use is updated to suit Indian music.

There were a lot of different manufacturers of harmoniums, but the most popular in the US was Estey Organ, who produced over 500,000 of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonium