Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Ruth und Sohn Band Organ

[zipperfoot1]

Organ sounds good. I would be interested to know what is the scale (how many keys (or should I say keyless) basis for this Ruth organ? Being that old, was it originally a cylinder organ and converted to book music or rolls?

[koasterkav]

@zipperfoot1 It's a 38 Ruth barritone model. As far as I know it was not a cylinder organ and used book music. Sometime in the 1950's the Boardwalk added the Wurlitzer dual roll player frames to play Wurlitzer 165 msuic, and sadly threw away many pipes to do it. Don Stinson with his work on another Ruth organ back east, made new pipes based on that Ruth organ and it now plays the way it did up to the Wurlitzer conversion, using music from the old books transfered to MIDI.

[anglerfly]

WHY do so many band organs look like 157's?

[koasterkav]

I sent a reply using my cell phone, but it doesn't appear so I'll answer the 157 facade question. Very few Wurlitzer 157 band organs are out there, but Don Stinson likes the fronts from them, and uses it in his large organs. The SCBB did not want to research on the origional Ruth facade, so they agreed to use a Stinson M2000 model as shown.

[koasterkav]

You are entitled to your opinion. Wurlitzer band organ facades were pretty much square and bulky, with the exception of maybe the 165. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk made the decision to choose the facade by Don Stinson. There is only one photo of the Ruth organ in the middle of the carousel they have. It is a full shot of the entire ride. I'm sure If they had a close up photo of the facade, they would try to make a replica of it.

[tregnier279]

Yes, all WurliTzer facades were basically rectangles, bu the 153 and 165 had large, rounded carvings around them.

All I'm saying, a facade, even if not totally accurate, in the heavily carved, rounded style of Ruth Organs would have been more appropriate.

[koasterkav]

The original facade was lost long ago, so a new one was custom made by Don Stinson for the Boardwalk, painted with classic scenes from 100 years ago. Yes his large organ facades look like those from a Wurlitzer 157. I personally like them.

[tregnier279]

It's a Ruth Organ, so it would have been a sorta rounded, organic looking facade covered in heavy Rococo-styled scroll carvings.

I've never liked the WurliTzer 157 facades. Too square and bulky.

[KawhackitaRag]

What's ironic is that the Wurlitzer 157 organ and facade itself was copied from a special-model 57-key Gavioli facade which Gavioli apparently made for Dentzel carousels.

There is one known surviving Gavioli of this type, and it is located on the Rocky Springs Park carousel in Pennsylvania (this is the carousel which was at Dollywood for a while).

[tregnier279]

Don't forget, the 165 was copied from the Gebr Bruder Apollo Orchestor (I believe that's right.)

[KawhackitaRag]

Correct! It was copied from the 65-keyless model. In this case it was an almost exact copy even down to the original scale.

The Wurlitzer 146A and 146B late-model facades are copied from the Wilhelm Bruder Sohne model 79 facade, but that organ itself is a Wurlitzer scale and design.

Many other organs are copied from cylinder organs:

the 104 and 105 from the 17;

the 125 from the 18;

the 110 from the 19;

130 from the 20;

150 from the 20-B; and

120 from the 21.

[tregnier279]

I always have thought it interesting how the "Mighty WurliTzer" organs were copied almost exactly from other organs by competing manufacturers.

I still think the WurliTzer 157 facade they put on this organ was horribly inappropriate.

[koasterkav]

@tregnier279 Get over it. They really had nothing to go on. The only photo showing the facade was taken at a distance away from the ride, and showed an outline of it, but no details. Nobody is complaining about the new facade. The old timers know about the park throwing away the original facade a long time ago, and they are happy with the new one. I don't hear the band organ community upset about it like you are.

[tregnier279]

@koasterkav

>>"Get over it."

>>posting a reply to something that happened 10 months ago

I dunno, maybe you'd have a point about me being a stupid whiner or whatever if I'd been arguing this for the past 10 months, but I haven't (in fact I'd forgotten all about it), so... yeah.

[tregnier279]

If the facade was missing, why not replace it with one styled after the original, or at least, other Ruth Organs?

Stinson seems to have a thing for WurliTzer 157 facades.