Ajello Pianola?

[garijones]

Hi,

I seem to be able to find loads of information on Ajello pianos on this site and others but nothing on Ajello Pianolas. Does anyone know any information sources on Ajello Pianolas - are they very rare or could this be a "converted" piano i.e. Ajello never made Pianolas? If it is very rare I may keep hold of it and restore it rather than sell it - I'm seeing Ajello pianos sold on ebay for £30.

Any advice you could provide would be much appreciated.

Kind Regards,


Gari Jones

[Bill Kibby]

A typical old upright of a century ago might well sell for £30 or less at a local auction, we are offered several a year for nothing. When you say "Pianola", that is a particular brand of player piano. It's rather like the way people say "Hoover" when they mean a vacuum cleaner. Does that precise name "Pianola" appear on the instrument? If not, that is why you aren't finding anything. This being a piano history forum, we tend to deal with antiques, and player pianos are usually left to the many more specialised sites, so we don't get many player piano enquiries here. There is a strong feeling among purists that pianos are musical instruments to be played by musicians, not by machines. I doubt if there is much about player pianos that could be considered rare, most twentieth-century pianos were mass-produced in enormous numbers. Most piano makers produced some models which had other people's player actions in them, whether the actual Pianola or one of the many others. Can you tell me the complete, exact wording on the piano? Which Ajello is it? Manchester or London? They were quite separate.