Pipe Organ Database

Updated by William M. Worden, who has heard or played the organ. William M. Worden also listed this individual as a source of information: Daniel Pilzecker via William Van Pelt.

Christ Methodist, Wauseon, Ohio, sold their Pilcher tracker to Salem Memorial in 1974, retaining the case, front pipes, and some other pipework. The Pilcher was taken to the Pilzecker shop in Toledo in 1976 where the manual chests were rebuilt and toeboards prepared for the new specification, retaining the tracker action for the manuals and the mechanical stop actions for the manual stops. All new electric action was provided for the pedal and the whole was enclosed in a new case. The completed organ was installed at Salem in 1977 as Pilzecker's opus 112.

Updated by William M. Worden, who has heard or played the organ.
As the pedal chests were new unit chests in 1977, the 32 note compass is not surprising, even though the original tracker might have had a lesser pedal compass.
The manual windchests are slider chests with tracker action. The pedal has no mechanical action; it has unit windchests with electric action which also serves the Great trumpet stops. The arrangement of the stop knobs in vertical flat panels either side of the keyboards suggests that the knobs retain their placement from a terraced console, with Great on the right and Swell on the left and the Pedal stops divided on both sides above the manual stops. Couplers are operated by "on and off buttons" in the keyslip between the manuals. The present facade suggests the werkprinzip, but the installation is typical of an American tracker with the Swell somewhat above and half behind the Great and the Pedal at the sides; the case is, therefore, deep as an old tracker case would be. The two ranks of the celeste in the swell is at the rear of the chest together on what appears to be a channel toeboard with a separate 12-note base, suggesting that this might once have been the slider for an oboe and bassoon located as it is over the pallet box. It is not possible to use the on-pitch Viola without the celeste. The 16' portion of the trumpet rank is half-length.

Updated through online information from William M. Worden. -- This is a rebuild of an older tracker.