Got a Wurlitzer 140, serial number 25399, bought from a musician in Paris. Well cleaned and fixed by another man 5 to? Superb condition but a minor slight problem with the earphones exit plug. Your piano’s age is one of the most significant factors in determining your piano’s Value. Each piano is manufactured with a unique serial number that is recorded for future reference of not only when it was made but also where. Discover your Piano’s Age and Country Of Origin with our 5 Star Accuracy Guide to ensure the quality.

Of all the musical instruments in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection of 5,200 violins, pianos, banjos and others, the largest—it fills three rooms—represents a unique period of nearly forgotten American history.

It’s a Wurlitzer theater organ. Vw polo classic 2005 service manual. In the early 20th century, thousands of these gigantic pipe organs were installed in movie theaters throughout the United States, Canada, England and Australia to accompany silent movies. This one worked its wonders in the Fox Theatre in Appleton, Wisconsin.

The Smithsonian’s instrument is a rare, completely original Wurlitzer donated by the estate of Lowell Ayars, a New Jersey music teacher, in 1993. Ayars kept it in museum-quality condition during the 30-some years it was played in his home. When Ayars died in 1992, he willed it to his friend Brantley Duddy, and Duddy contacted the Smithsonian, which gratefully accepted it for the musical instrument collection of the National Museum of American History. For now, it sits in storage, its burnished white-and-gold console protected by a sheet of plastic. But there are plans to restore it to glory.

The Ayars organ, a Model 190 (serial number 2070), was built by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of North Tonawanda, New York, in 1929 for the Fox Theatre. After the theater became a department store in 1959, the organ briefly went into storage until Ayars bought it and installed it in his New Jersey home.

As theater organs go, this one is modest in size, its pipes fitting into a space about 15 feet wide and 13 feet deep. It sports two keyboards (called manuals), 584 individual pipes organized into eight ranks, and four tuned percussion instruments as well as special effects. The largest original Wurlitzer still in operation—with more than 4,000 pipes in 58 ranks, ranging from 32 feet in length to the size of a pencil—is also the most famous: the Radio City Music Hall Wurlitzer in New York City, which was installed in 1932.

Between 1911 and 1943, the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company built more than 2,000 theater organs, most of them about the size of the Ayars, for smaller, neighborhood theaters. The first silent films had been accompanied by a pit orchestra or, for the more frugally minded impresario, a lone piano. When the theater organ came along, with its ability to imitate an orchestra and create special sound effects, every movie house owner had to have one.

At its peak in 1926, the company was shipping a Wurlitzer a day, mass-producing one of the most technologically advanced machines of its time. The theater organ is related to the classic church pipe organ, whose basic design has been around for more than 2,000 years. Air blown through pipes, each tuned to create a different musical tone, creates the sound. Blowers located under the ranks, or sets of pipes, force air into them when valves are opened as the organist plays the keys and stops (tabs the organist flips up or down to activate different ranks of pipes).

In a church organ, this rather simple mechanism can produce only a certain number of sounds. To the dismay of lovers of the traditional organ, British inventor and telephone engineer Robert Hope-Jones electrified it and created a switching system to allow any combination of pipes and effects to be played at once. His instruments could produce numerous inventive sound effects, including train and boat whistles, car horns and bird whistles, and some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses’ hooves, smashing pottery, thunder and rain.

The new organs either incorporated or at least imitated other musical instruments—from piano and violin to trumpet, drums, cymbals, even bells and chimes. Hope-Jones dubbed it the Unit Orchestra: with it an organist could imitate an entire dance band or orchestra.

In 1910, after his company foundered, Hope-Jones was bought out by the Wurlitzer Company, which, with elegant-looking products and aggressive advertising, dominated the theater organ market. Even today, many people remember the slogan: 'Gee Dad, it’s a Wurlitzer.'

Wurlitzer’s time in the limelight was brief. The sound of Al Jolson’s voice in The Jazz Singer of 1927 spelled doom for the theater organ. Soon Hollywood was putting sound in every movie it produced. By the mid-1930s, most theater owners had replaced their organs with speaker systems.

Of the more than 5,000 organs manufactured in the early 1900s, only a few hundred remain in public venues; a few others, like the Ayars organ, were rescued by private collectors. Only a handful are in their original theater installations. Richmond, Virginia, has three theaters with original organs, the Chicago Theatre still has its Wurlitzer, and some of the truly grand movie palaces have original organ installations, including the Fox Theatres in Atlanta, St. Louis and Detroit and the Orpheum in Los Angeles.

Forty years ago, Carsten Henningson, owner of Ye Olde Pizza Joynt in Hayward, California, and a devoted organ enthusiast, decided a Wurlitzer might help boost business. It did just that, and the phenomenon spread throughout the state and beyond as dozens of moribund theater organs found new lives in restaurants.

At one such venue—the Bella Roma Pizza restaurant in Martinez, California—on a recent Sunday night, organist Kevin King put a Wurlitzer through its paces, bouncing in his seat as his hands played different keyboards, occasionally pausing to flip stops, while his feet plied the pedals. 'You’re playing all the orchestra sounds plus some real instruments,' he says.

Musical historians and theater organ buffs would like to see the Smithsonian’s Wurlitzer played publicly once again. Exhibits specialist and theater organist Brian Jensen helped bring the organ to the Institution. 'Ours does not have all the bells and whistles of the larger organs found in big cities,' says Jensen, 'but it represents what was in 90 percent of the theaters across the country, in neighborhoods and smaller towns. Like the Star-Spangled Banner, it’s a recognized symbol of American culture.' Cabi fall 2011 limited edition.

Some notes:. What WAS the Wurlitzer used on Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say”? Everyone likes to think that their 112 or 145 is the one. Sorry, folks. Based on photographic evidence from and, it’s almost certainly a 120.

But if you have a 112, you can still wow people and say it’s the one Sun Ra used on his early singles and albums (“ “Angels and Demons at Play”, “Super-Sonic Jazz”). If you have a 140 or 145A or some such, heck, it’s probably the vibrato-y instrument you are hearing on the Sonics’ “Strychnine.” I’ll take it, and so should you. More importantly, each of these models had their own distinct sound and feel, with a lot of range and infinite possibilities.

Make it your own. Vibrato: n. While there is no functioning vibrato in any student or teacher models, they are built into the circuitry of the amps in both the 146/146B and 206-era models, and therefore can be added with some minor electronic work. They are not included in the circuitry of the 206A-era models. October 27, 2016 update: I had a Eureka moment today! You can date-confirm your own Wurli!

Please do and send me the data. Despite this recent epiphany, this table still contains a lot of guesses, especially regarding dates. It has been a challenge to pin down months and years of production runs of Wurlitzer electric pianos, and I invite all data you might have. Often I’ve had to go by the dates printed on schematics (which are sometimes revisions, up to 7 years after a model debuted), or on update “note” sheets (sort of updates to the manuals) released by the company–which only indicate that the model existed by a certain date. The pre-200 1960s models (140-145-720 and later A and B variants, and student models 146 and 726, plus B variants) have been especially hard to pinpoint, datewise, though I am on the verge of nailing that down. Due to my lack of understanding of the company’s manufacturing and distribution system, I also don’t know whether a manufacturing date precedes a model’s debut by weeks or months. Did they stockpile these, and release them all at once for holiday purchase?

Or did they push them into shops as quickly as possible?. I’m including columns with some sketchy serial number information, and it is poorly annotated and credited in the chart. Some of this comes from schematics; much of it comes from a very small sampling of keyboards as witnessed by me, or as data shared by compadres, or as recorded in online chat forums, or as seen in online auctions. These should not be taken as “earliest” or “latest” dates, by any means.

The columns merely report the earliest and latest numbers I’ve seen, recently, for a given model. These numbers, by the way, do not seem to correspond precisely with the order of production. In periods where several models were produced in parallel, ranges of numbers were reserved for different models. For example, it is possible that 140s started with 25001, while 145’s started at the same time with 30177. A 140B of serial #29808 is from around 1965-6, and therefore post-dates a 1962 145 in the early 30000’s.

This table currently lists about 42 Wurlitzer electric piano models, including a mid-60’s teacher model of which I’ve only seen one unverified report (the 147 and/or 147B) and another (the 727 or 727B) of which I am only surmising would have to exist, though not a single report or reference exists. However, the official model numbers only tell part of the story. Wurlitzer was constantly revising and improving its designs, and there are countless additional variations within many “official” model numbers. When possible, the factories would use up stock of prior parts on new models, so the official model name change doesn’t always reflect the model’s eventual most distinct features. Amplifiers were revised repeatedly, and so a 140B, or a 200, or a 200A, might contain different amp specs or designs features at any number of points in its production. (For example, one expert tells me that the 200 had 5 different amps over its 7 years of production; I have not verified this, though the manual shows two variants.) An early or late 120 will reportedly have different action and amp features; early 140B’s might differ from later ones in their damper arms, reed screws, knob positions, and capacity for an optional battery pack. And so on.

I assert that the 200 (pre-A) series was produced until September 1974. The 200A series did not begin production until late 1974, at the earliest, and debut instruments may not have been completely assembled or distributed until the start of 1975 (awaiting evidence either way). Most online accounts have the switch happening at 1972.

This is simply inaccurate information that keeps being repeated. In fact, any 1974-dated instruments in the 200A-series might be 200 series instruments with replaced electronics (I am calling these “hybrids”). The earliest dated schematic I can find is from October 1974, and that’s only for the wiring of the new teacher-student modules. At the other end, the 200A was in production on or after June 27, 1983, though that was clearly the tail end of things.

If you have a 200A series Wurli prior to serial #86065 or later than #153020, or in the 9xxxx range, I’d be especially interested in all date stamps on its keys and treble action rail. Once we are in the 200A era, there exist classroom-model keyboards labeled “Musitronic” which look exactly like Wurlitzers, and carry the same model numbers (though different, 7-digit serial number systems). These were licensed by the Wurlitzer company, and badges say they were manufactured by Wurlitzer, too. Experts report that, while visually nearly identical, these seem to have been manufactured under different conditions, have slightly different parts (softer hammer felts, different grommets, different amp components, etc.), and are therefore different in feel and sound. I have worked on these, and having no other nearby Wurlitzer EP with which to compare it, I must say they seemed undistinguishable. The other possibility is that Musitronic took over the business as Wurlitzer was getting out of it, and that their keyboards were assembled in the 1980’s from the remaining parts.

This is unexplored territory, and perhaps the new understanding of date-stamping will help shed light on this shortly.Musitronic also sold other music keyboards, “Music Learning Modules,” which were NOT electric pianos, but some sort of electric organ. These are not addressed in the above chart. Wurlitzer’s literature has some odd revisionist history. The 140A-145A-720A-145B, the 146B-147-726B, and the 210/210A, for example, seem to be erased from most of the Wurlitzer literature, manuals, parts catalogs, and schematics, peeking out, at best, only in the graphics of manual covers or in certain update notes. They most certainly do exist, though–I’ve confirmed all of these, except for the possibly mythical 147 and only-theorized 727 “teacher’s models.” This chart is very much a work in progress, and I welcome all additional data.

My initial impulse in creating this chart was to pinpoint some reed replacement data, detailed A memo from 1971 spells it all out. There were four basic reed periods in Wurlitzer Electric Pianos (I’m calling these “styles”), and the reeds are not universally interchangeable between these styles. Though, what makes things confusing some are, for the first three styles. (That said, reports also indicate that, within these “styles,” there are changes over time, perhaps every couple of years. So, while a 1965-era 140B can use reeds intended for a 1975-era 200A, and vice versa, the instruments’ original reeds may have had different tonal qualities, due to different thicknesses, metal, manufacturing process, etc.). Entries made on chat forums, on Wikipedia, or electronic piano sites, are sometimes contradicted by Wurlitzer’s published data or my individual experience. On the other hand, those who have opened these instruments up will have access to individual production stamp dates that I have not seen.

So this chart is a mixture of information, misinformation, interpolations and best guesses from all these sources. Any challenges to attributed claims are not intended as a slam on anyone, but just hopes at confirmation. It’s a dizzying amount of data; models were often revised mid-run with poor documentation, and we are all, at times, dealing with Frankensteined instruments without knowing it. Some website entries and articles seem to be written in a quick, top-of-the-head manner, and do not necessarily reflect the depth of repair skill of those who make them.REED Compatibility “STYLES”I have moved this information to its own page,List and notes copyright 2014 to 2018 by Steve Espinola. Please do not republish or repost this list in this form without attribution. Some of its contents are derivative (and attributed to their sources by links), and obviously I make no claims to such contents.

It took me many full days of work, over years, to research, edit and organize all this information into this page. It involved hundreds of creative and editorial choices. I’m very happy to share; just do me the courtesy of being in touch and crediting my research and organizational efforts, much as I have credited others in my links.Especially useful in beginning this list, and frequently cited throughout, was Chris Carroll’s essay about the history of Wurlitzer Electronic Piano models which appeared on the website, but now appears to have been removed.

Also helpful was this, though it contains some serious typos and errors as of November 2017.Special thanks to , the, the Sound and Circuit site, Tim Warneck of, Janice of, and the, all of which I used as resources in developing this list. I hope, in return, it can function as a useful quick reference to all of them and others. I’m continuing to pursue this question. It’s a really good one. I get the feeling that, from around 1957 through 1967, they were producing around 3000 electric pianos a year, and these were divided, roughly, between whichever models were being produced in a given year. I’m basing this on serial numbers, and a rough idea of when certain individual instruments were made.

I don’t know whether production increased dramatically, starting with the 200 series, in 1968. I’m guessing it did, but I have not analyzed the data. Nice to see you here! I’m sorry, your comment was buried, til now, in miles of spam.That information is extremely helpful. I’m always happy to receive pictures.

From what I’ve read, the circuitry is probably there, just not hooked up.I am unclear on whether there was ever a 146 (no B), or whether they introduced these teaching modules around the times of the “B’s”. The official Wurlitzer literature is EXTREMELY vague or downright sloppy in differentiating the various early 60s models. The 140A/145A/145B/720A models are only EVER mentioned in notes about reed compatibility–the appropriate manual “disappears” them.

Likewise, that note #17 makes no mention of a 146B, or the teacher model 147. Hi Terri,The cables on those old Wurlies are pretty standard appliance cables from that era.

I do not have a reliable source for them, but you may be able to find a modern substitute online.For safety’s sake, however, it’s usually a good idea to get an amp tech to rewire those old amps to 3-prong, and to take out a rather dangerous capacitor they tended to wire in near the power source. (not my area of expertise, but any shop that repairs guitar tube amps will know how to do it).I can direct you to a good tech to do this work. I own a 145A that could not be in better original playing condition internally. I will post serial number and any date stamps when I get home.

The only issue is the ground buzz, that no matter what methods we (the pros I take it to for servicing at custom vintage keyboards here in los angeles) attempt at permanently reducing it to a level that is acceptable for studio recording, just cant quite get it eliminated enough. I understand that theres going to be a buzz on this particular model especially no matter what we do, but any ideas or input on how to most tame this notorious thorn in my side would be greatly appreciated!. Hi,I just picked up a Wurlitzer Model 200, SN 82911 L (Logan Utah?). Internally stamped in green ink on back of action: 40325302 “A-60-5” (including the quotation marks). According to your dating idea, this may be from 1974, March 25 (so later than the last number you listed above for a model 200).

Definitely a Model 200 with speakers on the chassis and the Model 200 amp.This one has been played a good bit (based on some looseness in the action) but the body seems almost too clean to be original. Amp looks original. So let me know if there are any pics or details you’d like. I have a 145A that has not been played for decades. I purchased around 1980 and gigged about ten years.The time is right for restoration (by me).

I find info on the 145B but not much on the 145A. Also, I don’t believe the amplification section is tube.

Is this possible? I believe it was recapped in the late 80’s, but I have not verified this yet.Looking for a felt kit and rubber grommets for the damper arms. Vintage Vibe the best source?Maybe I should send the amp section out for professional work. I appreciate any advice.If you are interested I can send serial # information to help with your project. Where are the date stamps found on the keys?Thx–Tim.

I think my email never reached you, so I’m writing you here in case you self-google. 🙂If your 145A has a solid state amp, the original tube amp was switched out. This is quite possible; the instrument will function fine with a restored 140 or 140B amp. If you want to have the amp section repaired or replaced, you should call me and discuss options: 347-619-2464. I’m opinionated on amps, but there’s more than one way to go.Get clear, in any event, whether you have a 140-era “A” series or an earlier “non-A” model. If your instrument has 11 damper-free notes at the top, it needs the 1950-style 120 reeds from notes #21 to the top, and some unique bass reeds. If it has only 5 damper-free notes, it’s an “A” series or later, and it uses reeds compatible with the 200 series.

I write this adamantly because there is a LOT of confusion about this out there!The 3 instruments in the 1960’s “A” series were barely mentioned in any official Wurlitzer literature, even though a good 3000 instruments were produced. I am working up a series of blog posts that will talk about those and the other earlier 1960’s models. Suffice it to say, they are seriously underrated instruments, especially compared to the “B” series. The 720A console was even produced a year into the production of the “B” portable line, and is one of my very favorite models.are a fine and painless way to get replacement parts for your Wurlitzer (the felts and grommets you mentioned). There may be cheaper ways to get the same parts, but they will require legwork and trial and error. In my experience, it is probably worth it to save yourself the time and just buy them from VV. In Pennsylvania, and both and in Los Angeles are also good sources for various parts that you may need to replace.

I reply on all of them, as I am not a parts shop.