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So I got the final word from the refurbishment company.
Here’s the quick history.

My father either bought or traded for the A series Hammond back in the late 70s. The story I don’t know much on.
He, and later I, played it till the early 90s when things Started to go awry.

It sat ignored for almost 12 years

When my father passed away I returned home to help my sister with our aging and disabled mother. Repairing the Hammond was a prime task for me.

I spent 15 years tinkering with it. Replacing tubes, wires, redoing solder points.
With a day one mint value of $15k, I’ve put almost $6k in it at this point. Some of the tubes being a grand each!

Then the fire.
Insurance was very specific on repairs for it. We paid to deal with the rest.
Out of pocket:
They replaced the transmission (yes it’s a real term)
The flywheel
Reset the balance
And told me I did an epic job on my own repairs [blushing]

Total cost of fixes (not including fire damage stuff)… $14k

Every single penny worth it. I went to play it the other day. It’s literally mint. Day one authentic original parts sourced from around the world. No reproductions, no modern replacements. The only variation was I had to make a breadboard pin wrap since nobody would sell it to me (2 offers for over $5k each).

This is my mentality in repairs and restoration.
Anything: computers, cars, audio and a/v,
Be 100% original or make the part from scratch.
It’s why I cost so much as a repairman
It’s why I have a limited but loyal clientele
And it’s why the same people, and their families and friends, keep coming back to me.
You won’t get it back in a week. Or a month. But it will be 100% original, or as close as any person on the planet will get too. AND, I only charge 10% of total cost in parts as my fee.

My current project is repairing an ocean lost TI99 computer. I’m 4 months in.
The only catch, they want USB and a 202 controller over usb. I won’t mod the unit.
So they compromised. I created a dual channel pass-through cartridge that will use the dormant instruction pins when using a software cartridge to carry a 202 signal into the I/o backend.
Their goal is to load UNIX with an X (actually using a modified late W with CDE extensions) so they “need” a mouse. And about 40meg in memory. (A separate issue).

I gutted a memory shark cart for the N64 and made a connector adapter, which I’ll plug into the computer. Plug the pass-through into the MS, and the software cartridge into it again via adapter.
I turned a 24k memory system 8-bit into 88mb unix workstation.


I’m waiting for a custom SOC to be finished.
Whole thing should be done hopefully by 2028. ;)

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I read every word, and some of them twice. I have no idea what all the components and systems you mentioned, but it was just like a good ole "whodunnit story".