Mellotronists

Sounds to me like mellotronguy got a decent machine to add to his
quivver of cool analog keyboards. 'Nuff said. Amidst all the Mellotron
eBay hoaxes that are really making potential owners ultra-wary, it's
reassuring to have a legit sale leaving buyer and seller happy. Yet
I'm curious as to why the seller thought it was 703 at first, and then
it turns out to be actually 459. Kind of a trivial thing to bring
up--but what the hey--I've got the free time...and besides, if the
unit has a great history (which is likely), it's cool to match the
serial # to its claim to fame. In my case, I had two different numbers
simply pencilled in under each cheekblock, but the number on one
cheekblock matched the imprint on the back of the main cabinet--so
that's what I'm going by...#1019. I sanded it off a long time ago when
I bought the unit twelve years ago and cleaned up the cabinet (it
looks great like 459 does), so I can't tell you what the number
was--it was most likely one of Kean's machines from his Moses Lake
days. I recalled the original cheekblock pin didn't align up to the
pop-in recepticle, and therefore didn't seat properly, so we simply
swapped one from another nearby unit instead of fenagling with the
adjustment. If it was nowadays and this happened...I would have made
the adjustment...the "original" cheek block, even though it's just a
little chunk of wood, would be nice to have with the unit it was
matched with. 

Hopefully, mellotronguy will join the group (I'm sure Doug let him
know of this group's existance) and let us know how it all worked out
and what he plans to do with it. Noting all the other keyboards he
has, hopefully this implies some serious recording down the road we'll
be able to listen to.