Peerless Style D Piano enjoyed by five generations
Story and photos by Bob Caletti
My grandfather, Angelo Caletti, obtained a Peerless Style D Piano as part of a bar he bought in 1913 in Petaluma, CA . The bar was located on the corner of Washington St. and Petaluma Blvd. The piano was made in 1906. That same piano, restored and playing beautifully, now resides in our home in Menlo Park, CA, being enjoyed by our grandchildren.
The Peerless Style D Piano, the first American automatically-played piano, was sold from about 1902 to 1916. It was manufactured by the Peerless Piano Player Co. of St. Johnsville, NY, and played an endless D roll (11¾ inches wide, with six holes per inch) mounted on a roll frame behind the piano sounding board. This required the piano to be located more than a foot away from the wall. The rolls played 65 piano notes plus sustain and hammer rail.
The Peerless Style D piano decal on beveled glass panel showing locations in Stockton, San Francisco, Oakland Spokane, Portland and Seattle. The decal is in remarkably good condition considering it is original.
The Peerless Style D piano chest as restored by Leonard’s Player Pianos.
The original patent date stamped on the soundboard is still clearly readable.
In 1919 when prohibition became law and alcohol became illegal, my grandfather’s bar was remodeled into a soda fountain business where ice cream, candy, magazines, and tobacco were sold. He also had some slot machines and trade stimulators in the soda fountain area. In the back was the entrance to the speakeasy where it was still possible to get a drink of illegal alcohol.
During the remodel from saloon to soda fountain my grandparents moved the Peerless piano to the apartment above the bar where they lived. My father and his sister both learned to play piano on the instrument. In the early 1930s my grandfather’s family moved to Menlo Park, CA, and took the Peerless with them. They still owned the building where the soda fountain had operated and rented that building out until it was torn down for a road widening project in 1969.
When I was old enough to be interested about the history and mechanics of the piano, it no longer played automatically.
I wanted to make the Peerless Piano play automatically as it did when it was part of the original bar but I didn’t know anything about automatic playing pianos. Then, one weekend in 1960, when I was still in high school, our family went to Sutro’s in San Francisco, CA and that is where I got to see a large number of automated musical instruments play.
To my amazement, they had a Peerless Style D just like ours and it played beautifully. The music was engaging and the sound immediately captivated me. I felt like a kid in a candy store. Looking back, I know it was right then that I fell in love with mechanical music.
While talking to my father about the piano I learned that the endless roll playing mechanism was removed along with some of the parts so they could push the piano closer to the wall. We still had the cast iron parts and gears for the mechanism, so that was at least something. I wanted to duplicate the parts that were missing so we visited Sutro’s again to take pictures of their Peerless Style D and get an idea of what was missing.
This is a photo taken inside of the original saloon purchased by Angelo Caletti. The Peerless Style D was digitally inserted into this photo but it might have appeared very much like this back in 1913.
The bar was heavily damaged in an earthquake in 1906.
The building as it existed in 1968 before being torn down to make way for a road widening project. The Caletti family still owned it at the time.
After prohibition became law in 1919, the bar was remodeled into a soda fountain as shown in this photo from 1929. My grand- father is on the left behind the counter. A speakeasy was said to operate in the back rooms. The back bar from the original saloon can still be seen on the left wall.
A Peerless roll box seen at Sutro’s in San Francisco, CA, in May 1960.
From the pictures my dad and I were able to duplicate the missing parts. I looked at the pneumatics and determined that they needed recovering and the tubing had to be replaced as well. I did what I could to correct the problems myself and tried to get the piano playing again, but I soon realized that the rolls were in bad shape as well. They wouldn’t track properly due to the edges being torn and I suspected the pouches needed attention as well. At this point I felt that there were a lot of techniques and information about rebuilding the pneumatics that I didn’t know. I temporarily gave up on restoring the Peerless, but I did return to Sutro’s on other occasions to hear the coin operated pianos and orchestrions play and I continued to dream that one day our own Peerless would come back to life.
Sutro’s was famous for its large collection of coin-operated pianos and orchestrions, along with all kinds of arcade type devices. Sutro’s was a popular place in San Francisco since it was next to the Playland-at-the-Beach amusement park and the Cliff House, a famous hotel and restaurant. Coin-operated pianos and orchestrions made great music and they were a magnet for nickels and dimes so these types of locations were money makers. For more information on Sutro’s and the Automatic Music Machines see the Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments by Arthur A. Reblitz, pages 286 -289.
In the 1970s my mother and her friend amalgamated the Alligatored finish on the Peerless piano case and it came out rather well. In 1981 I joined the Musical Box Society International. Through the society, I was able to find an expert in the San Francisco area (Leonard’s Player Pianos) that could recover the pneumatics the right way and rebuild the pillow pouches and pump. I removed the necessary pieces and brought them to him to restore. I had a piano technician restring the piano, then rebuild and regulate the action. I did all of the rest.
A set of instructions for Peerless owners telling how to care for the music rolls.
I knew that the rolls were so torn on the edges they would not be playable. Talking with a well-known roll re-cutter named Ray Siou, I decided to convert the piano to play A rolls which were readily available. I bought an A roll frame and tubed it up in the back where the endless roll mechanism once was.
I finally got the piano playing and my father, who was still alive, got to hear it play again. I videotaped him telling me about the bar and our Peerless piano that once played there. He was only 10 years old when the piano was removed from the bar. He was glad that it was restored and playing again like it did in the bar over 60 years before
I had my original endless rolls scanned and converted to the A roll format so I could play the original Peerless music that once played in my grandfather’s bar as well as other A rolls I enjoy. It is great to be able to have an instrument that has been in the family for so long. When I run my hands along the wood, I know that my grandfather and my father and my children have all done the exact same thing and it is a wonderful connection from my past into my future.
The Peerless Style D piano in Bob Caletti’s family room where it can be enjoyed by all who come to visit.
Today our Peerless Style D stands in a place of honor in our family room, next to the picture of my grandfatherin his soda fountain where both can be enjoyed by any guests and family members who happen to visit.
The Peerless Piano was my first automated pneumatic instrument and the first mechanical music instrument I owned. Once I joined MBSI I started collecting music boxes and other pneumatic instruments. Because I am a mechanical engineer I love mechanical things and enjoy fixing things, what better things to fix than old musical instruments that make such great music and have such a rich history.