Piano Lodeon

I never shop Antique Stores, but . . .

I purchased the Piano Lodeon below for $25.  It's a miniature Player Piano manufactured by the J. Chein Co. in the late 1950's and early 1960's.

Below is from Wickipedia:

One of the final original Chein toy products, and one of its most complicated, was the electromechanical "Piano Lodeon", a child-sized player piano.  It utilized a combination of plastic and tin, and a mechanism that used spooled rolls of punched paper with well-known songs programmed onto them. A total of approximately 50 tunes were available.  The piano's keyboard was actuated by a vacuum produced by an electric fan, with a rubber tube connecting each key with a corresponding hole in the front of the piano's housing.  When a hole punched in the paper passed over one of these holes, it caused the correct key to strike tuned tines inside the case, producing the desired tune.  The keyboard could also be played manually.  The device was never financially successful for Chein due to its complexity, high price and the rise to dominance of purely electronic musical instruments.

They were also manufactured in a dark maroon color.  It's in good condition with a few minor problems, but I've restored several player pianos and even a vintage Ampeco reproducing grand.

The rolls in the photograph are: No. D-3 'The Old Piano Roll Blues'; No. P-1 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'; and No. P-3 'Frosty the Snowman'.

I find it interesting that there's no number on J. Chein's street address.

I've found old post cards with nothing more than the intersection of two streets as an address.