(Photograph courtesy of Dana Johnson.)

Holtzer-Cabot electric motor in National piano #7524. The motor compartment provides a space for the coin collection box and on the bottom floor a Holtzer-Cabot electric motor that powers the player system, The motor is installed with the belt pulley side up next to the piano plate. This orientation is necessary because the belt must go behind the revolver magazine, which is located to the left of the motor in its own center compartment. The motor is mounted on a base that allows it to be adjusted right or left, to increase belt tension if and when needed.

(Photograph courtesy of Dana Johnson.)

Holtzer-Cabot electric motor in a National coin piano (serial number unknown). For this unfortunate National piano, rather than earnestly restore the player system an auxiliary silent suction unit has been installed to augment the vacuum generating capacity. Such tactics are commonly used to prolong the life of a dying player system that has degraded to the point whereby it cannot reasonably function without extraordinary aid. And, yet, the electric motor, the source of mechanical life for the player system, probably performs pretty much as it did when it was brand new.

(Photograph courtesy of Dana Johnson.)

Vacant motor compartment in National piano #7274. With a coin collector chute at the top that goes nowhere, and the dangling electrical wires at the bottom that also go nowhere, this forlorn looking piano exemplifies the plight of most National coin pianos—except that this one still survives, instead of being set on a funeral pyre and burned to ashes. During the early 1930s, many hundreds of idle National coin pianos, stored away in warehouses, are known to been disposed of by removing the electric motors and then setting them ablaze, salvaging as junk whatever metal parts remained—a sad end to pianos that once brought musical joy to countless people.

(Photograph courtesy of Dick Hack.)

Holtzer-Cabot motor No. 520587 in National piano #7352. The nameplate further reads: Frame QS 15; Volts 110; Amps 5.5; Phase 1; H.P. blank; R.P.M. 1150; Cycles 60. According to the serial number, this motor is dated late circa 1926.