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UK 5-manuals?


ross cobb

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Take a look at this then!

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Five-Manual-Console-/261997176001?hash=item3d003fa4c1

 

Actually it's not bad value for money as it's advertised at £750 buy-it-now. If you could get it cheaper by bidding it would be even better.

 

I have a lot of respect for the person who's selling it and would be very tempted to take it off his hands if I only had the space!

 

CEP

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Whilst I generally recoil from stoptab consoles I must confess that I find the Walker curving quadrant jambs with their distinctive curved pointy tabs (am I right in thinking they are known as "elephant tusks"?) very attractive to look at and comfortable to play. That console is a beauty, totally different from the later Nicholson drawstop console (which I also find very handsome in its own way).

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I wonder if Walkers' got the idea for the shape of their stop-keys from Rothwell when the two firms collaborated at St. George's Chapel, Windsor

 

I'm not a fan of this particular type, although I know several people who prefer it (my own preference for tabs is the Willis type, both for their shape and the positive feel to their operation), but in some ways I think they should have kept the Walker console at Doncaster. In its way, it was an important piece of history, like the Schulze pipework.

 

Not that it's any of my business!

 

Perhaps some benefactor would buy the console and donate it back to Doncaster as an exhibit.

 

incidentally, when Hill, Norman & Beard rebuilt and enlarged the organ at Lion Walk United Reformed Church, Colchester, there was a particular wish to retain Walker stop-keys on the new three-manual console. HN&B acquired the last examples in stock to make up the numbers.

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Perhaps some benefactor would buy the console and donate it back to Doncaster as an exhibit.

 

 

That's a really nice idea. However I suspect the probability is greater than zero that they would say they'd rather have the money!

 

CEP

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Well spotted there Mr Pykett, and here's me thinking I needed to get out more whilst amiably ambling through eBay curios....

Good to see some decent photos of the old thing which was exceedingly easy to play and find your way around and it was a real looker.

I imagine the seller knew what he was doing (and I do know who it is by the way!).

It would indeed feel more at home in it's original place, it would make an ideal slave console.

Top marks for the eagle eye, it looks to be in pretty good condition.

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As do the seller's notes.

 

And the names engraved on the stop-keys (click on a photograph....). David Drinkell - I believe that they were also (perhaps a touch unkindly) known as 'old ladies' teeth'. However, I agree with you; I much prefer draw-stops, but if I had to have a stop-key console, the Walker model was quite elegant. I wonder what happened to another, four-clavier console, which was recently disposed-of by a large church in the West Country....?

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