Pete, you might want to try some of the following to help id that organ:
 
(1) Look for opus numbers on the pipes or on the windchests.  A good
place to look, if numbers are not obvious on the pipes, is on the largest
non-zinc pipe in a rank.  Look all over, including on the back near the
mouth.  You may find the voicer's initials or name or the date, or
all sorts of stuff!  If you get an opus number, that can be a good
clue.  For example, if it is opus 10,000, then it MUST be a Moller
since no one else had numbers that high (well, assuming they weren't
cheating!).  Given the lists in Dave Junchen's "Encyclopedia of the
American Theatre Organ", it is often possible to identify an instrument
or to otherwise figure out what it is.
 
(2) Get any info you can from the blower.  The serial numbers can also
be used to look up the original instrument or to date the organ.
 
(3) What ranks does it have?  What ones are obviously additions or
replacements?  That can show whether or not it was a theatre organ.
 
(4) Look inside the console and inside the case for a terminal strip
with markings about ranks, percussions, etc.  That can also tell you
what kind of instrument it was.
 
(5) It sounds like it has slider chests.  There were some "organs in
theatres" (rather than "theatre organs") with tracker action.  Again,
Junchen's book will be a big help in that case.  (He lists a tracker
as the 2nd "organ in a theatre" ever installed, and he also cites a
number of Hinners trackers in theatres.)
 
(6) Assuming that the console is original, what is its design?  What
kind of stop controls does it use?  How are the various stops spelled?
Is there the outline of where a nameplate might have originally been?
 
There have been some electrified trackers that have been restored to
mechanical action.  An outstanding example is the 4m Hook & Hastings
in Mechanics Hall (!) in Wochester, Massachusetts.  It had been outfitted
with electro-pneumatic pull-downs and its console was replaced, all in
about the 1920s.  In the mid-1980s Noack restored it, even to the extent
of building a new Barker level action.  He hired out the construction
of the new 4m attached console (and I should remember who did the
work, but my notes are at home).  It was a fine job all around.
(That organ has a "high pressure" Tuba Mirabilis on the Solo, on almost
4" of wind.  I attended one of the re-dedication recitals; while the
organ isn't overpowering, it has a fine sound, one that blended very
well with the orchestra and chorus.)
 
(Wochester also has a wonderful 4m about 100r Kimball of about 1930.  It
is in the War Memorial and is original.  There is a great casette tape
of the late Earl Miller playing it for an OHS convention.  That organ
has everything from a tin Diapason chorus to orchestral reeds to
theatre-ish flutes and strings.  Highly recommended!)
 
Larry Chace ([log in to unmask])