Mason & Hamlin (Boston, Massachusetts)

A very fine quality piano, this Mason & Hamlin upright plays Welte T-100 or "Red Welte" rolls with a reproducing mechanism licensed by the German Welte firm. It is fully restored and in lovely playing condition, with a large library of Red Welte rolls.

The tradition of the Welte is wonderful, a foundation of the field of automatic musical instruments. In the early 20th century, Edwin Welte and Karl Böckisch of M. Welte & Sons of Freiburg, Germany worked with Hugo Popper, of Popper & Co. in Leipzig, to create an automatic piano that would reproduce the actual playing of well-known pianists. The three worked to create a mechanism, starting about 1904 and attaining completion in 1906. A recording studio was set up in the Popper facility in Leipzig, easy for musicians to visit and to be recorded (in contrast, Welte was located at a distance in the Black Forest). Also, Hugo Popper had extensive connections with the musical community of Leipzig, the music center of Germany.

The result was the Welte Mignon, announced in 1906. Mignon was selected as the name means small in French—and these pianos were indeed diminutive in comparison to the immense orchestrions made by Welte at the time. The Welte Mignon became a worldwide sensation, and sales were beyond expectations, including at the Welte showroom in New York City. Later, several other types of Welte rolls were made, some of these licensed to be made in America at the firm's Plattsburg (New York) factory. Today, collectors consider the "big three" reproducing piano systems to be the Ampico, Duo-Art and Welte. 65x32x58 inches.