New organ for church

[AMDguy]

Hi All,
I know that I have kind of been all over with the things that I have said lately. It has been a mess with attempting to navigate the bureaucracy of our church. For the purpose of this thread, ignore everything else that I said elsewhere.

I have been searching for a replacement organ for our church, in the case that the Conn that we have is not fixable. The biggest limitation is money. Our church has nothing, so we are basically limited to what is free (or very close to free). In terms of location, anything that is within about 750 miles of Augusta, Maine would be about as far as we can go. I found a Lowrey in New Jersey, but I contacted the seller and he sent me pictures, and it has almost exclusively Tibias (I think that there is one diapason on the whole organ, maybe 2). I know that a theater organ can be used for a church, but it is not ideal for playing traditional hymns. Any suggestions for possible organs to look out for. I am basically glued to eBay and Craigslist, but I cannot find much.

[Dewey643]

Have you tried Facebook Marketplace in your area? I just sold a motorcycle through using that,....took a while,...but I finally got it sold!

[toodles]

Since it is so close, you ought to at least look at this Hammond: https://maine.craigslist.org/msg/d/f...929946922.html listed at $200, but negotiable (perhaps free as a donation to a church?). Hammond is not my favorite for a church organ, but thousands of churches have used them and they can be OK for hymn work.

This is a larger Hammond not much farther away: https://nh.craigslist.org/msg/d/new-...928104219.html

[Larrytow]

If you really mean in a 750 mile radius ( not 75 or 50 ), then that is a large enough territory that I'm pretty sure will cough up a decent church organ fairly quickly. Of course in this sort of search " fairly quickly " may mean a month or two. Don't know if you can wait that long or not, but really, don't just grab up any old organ just to have something, unless it is a critical element of your worship.

As I mentioned before, right now the used organ market is a Buyers market in most locations. So finding a cheap ( or free even ) Allen is quite possible in that big of an area.

In one of your other threads on this issue, one of our own members here indicated that he PMed you about a good church organ that he knows of that was near you. Did you pursue that yet ?

[Pipeorganbuilder]

The Facebook Market Place is a great suggestion where I live here in Tn. There were two Allen organs within twenty miles of me that were free. One guy said he had it listed for free for over two months.

Michael

[cham-ed]

Are the mechanicals functioning with the Conn? Could it be the basis for a Hauptwerk conversion? Especially if you can find the right person(s) to do the work. It could become a nice instrument that way?

[Horseshoe_or]

I have played many Baldwin analog instruments that were quite useable for church music. You need to find one with 32 foot pedals as the smaller instruments are not particularly good for church work. The silent touch series had some problems but if you find one that is fully functional, it is likely to play on indefinitely. They can be found for little or nothing. The Baldwin model 645C was used in many Billy Graham rallies.

[John Vanderlee]

Here's something: https://www.--------/itm/Allen-Elect...IAAOSwdZVc7B6V

or this:

https://newjersey.craigslist.org/msg...914131466.html


"not Working" may be something simple we could help you with.

[beel m]

Can't recommend the ebay organ. An Allen T-12A is an old analog unified flute organ, with self-contained speakers. They were still around in 1974, 3 years after the Computer Organs became available, as Allen's "bottom-feeder" model for a then-$3695. I like Allens, but a unit flute organ will be boring by Sunday 2...

[Adam Caldow]

I was going to recommend the Craigslist free Allen TC-1 in Clifton NJ also.

[John Vanderlee]

And this one is worth about a quarter of the price:
https://syracuse.craigslist.org/msg/...919977859.html

[AMDguy]

wow, thanks for all of the support! yes, I do mean 750 mile radius, we can drive pretty far to get it. We are in no rush to get it, and I am going to take a look at the Conn that we have this coming Sunday. I am not sure about a Hauptwerk conversion, as I am really the only one in our church with any sort of electronics knowledge, and the people running our church would definitely not be happy with me doing something on that scale (they were hesitant to let me take the back off and "look for loose wires and dust"). I have not really searched FB marketplace, I will try that though.

I know it sounds totally insane, because it probably is, but the Allen at the Johnson Ferry Baptist church in Georgia is for sale. They are asking 50k, but they say that 52 of the tt4 boards, a power supply, and a preamp need replacement. Not sure about the preamp and power supply, but after doing some reading, I think that the issue with the TT4 boards is the infamous Allen potentiometer issue, so that could be a pretty quick and easy fix. It has been sitting on ebay for a while now, and they reduced from 80k to 50k, so I put in an offer for $0.99. Yea, they are probably going to laugh in my face, but if they don't, that would be really cool.

[Pipeorganbuilder]

I did something like that last year and darn if I didn't get it. You never know. Wishing you good luck.

Michael

[John Vanderlee]

I doubt that .99 will get it, haha! However often sellers realize that the market is not what they thought and the "get it out of here" pressure gets intense. I've made unrealistic bids( in the seller's mind) and have them contact me months later willing to deal.

[jbird604]

I'd hazard a guess that just removing the Johnson Ferry TT-4 organ and getting it transported to Maine (even if you "think" you have volunteers to do it) is going to cost thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Could be 15,000 pounds of equipment that would require a large semi-truck to move. And installing one of these could take a crew of 20 people a month or more. So I'm suggesting that you probably need to aim a bit lower.

You may have already mentioned the size of your church building, but if so I don't recall. If you are in a structure that seats fewer than 500 people, you probably ought to be in the market for a simple smallish used Allen, such as the MOS system 202 in one of the ads linked above. I know that one is OLD, and the price they are asking is way too high, but that is the kind of fairly simple organ you should be considering to replace a failing old Conn. Great big old organs of any kind require an enormous amount of space, a huge amount of labor to install, and a very high level of skill to properly voice and set up. An old Allen MOS organ is as simple as they get -- just two audio channels which need to be set for equal volume level, and a bass boost control that should be set to give a nice pedal tone without overloading the speakers. That's about all the labor and skill required to set one of those up.

Anyway, I applaud you for looking, and for even considering a large custom organ. It's probably just way outside your price range (which you state is free or nearly free) and probably takes up a thousand times more space than you have for an organ (if the old Conn tells me anything about the space your church has budgeted for an organ). Forgive me in advance if I'm underestimating your church though ;-)

So keep up the good work and don't give up. Don't settle for another old piece of junk such as a broken down old Lowrey or Kimball or something else that won't be any more musically satisfying than the old Conn. There are lots of nice Allen and Rodgers organs out there for not much money these days, and one of them is just the right size for your needs!

[Dewey643]

A Rodgers similar to my Essex 640 would do a church like his just fine! On a another note,...my back is FINALLY getting much better after pulling a muscle in my lower back two weeks ago. That,unfortunately,kept me away from the organ for a week or two. I can finally get back at it now,I think.

[John Vanderlee]

At AMD guy, if you really are hellbent on something impressive, PM me.
John

[Larrytow]

John, I've mentioned your offer at least two times in this thread and his other one. I don't know why he does not contact you ? You are even in his travel radius - easily.

For the record, when someone requests you to send a PM, that is a PRIVATE MESSAGE in the system software that runs this forum. It is handy and useful.

[AMDguy]

Update: as expected, they totally ignored my offer, so back on the hunt. I found one close to me that looks like a Baldwin 48C, but it does not have the pedalboard (maybe it is just not attached?).
https://maine.craigslist.org/zip/d/c...933259090.html

There was a member that PMed me, but that fell through. Our church has seating for probably about 250-300, but there are only about 80-100 parishioners...

[AMDguy]

I would, but it is really trickey, because the people running our church do not really want to invest any sort of money into any sort of organ, so I am basically left to what i can scavenge off of craigslist and ebay for free. if you know about anything though, do let me know. I am pretty adventurous, and I can figure out things pretty quickly, so I think that we would be able to install a small organ into our chuuch with little outside help... but then again, I have never actually installed an organ, and I don't know that much about electronic organs.

[myorgan]

I PM'd you with an offer of help, locating, and advice about moving an organ, and you never responded. The church that closed in June which had the ADC-3100 probably has found a place for the organ now. I believe it would have been free to another church. The organ was located in Bangor-just 80 miles from Augusta.

I guess at this point, I'm not sure what you really need, but I'm out. (Shark Tank reference) Your parents can contact me if the church is truly interested in an organ.

Michael

[timnc]

I PM'd you with a free Allen although it may be a bit far. As far as installing, there are many folks on this forum that can help. I would start with getting external speakers, place them high enough to get the sound over the congregation while standing and point them to the center of the room. The one I messaged you about has 1/4” jacks in the back. Just plug in non-powered speakers that can handle 80 watts RMS. There is an adjustment inside to control volume of the built-in speakers when using external ones. jbird604 is extremely knowledgeable on these and helped me fix a dead key on the same model with $5 part and a soldering iron.