Several recent postings have touched on a question that has come
up repeatedly in the MMD,  How much is my player piano/nickelodeon/
music box/Symphonion, etc. worth?   It's a question that is difficult to
answer definitely, because the price and the value of a mechanical music
instrument may be two entirely different amounts.

While hosting the Player Piano and Mechanical Music Exchange web
page for the past six months, I have received occasional feedback
from advertisers.  Some items sell very quickly; other advertised
items receive no inquiries at all.  What conclusions should we
draw from this?

Allow me to cite a couple of quotations from "Swim with the
Sharks without Being Eaten Alive" by Harvey Mackay:

  "Our sense of the worth of an object is not derived from its
  intrinsic value but from the demand that has been created for
  that object."  (Quickie 14)

Also, from Lesson 1 entitled, "It's Not How Much It's Worth, It's
How Much People Think It's Worth,"  Mackay states:

  "Marketing is not the art of selling.  It's not the simple
  business of convincing someone to buy.  It is the art of creating
  conditions by which the buyer convinces _himself_.  And nothing
  is more convincing than hard evidence that others want the same
  thing."

With these thoughts in mind, let me pose the following question:
How do we create a demand for mechanical music instruments?  What
can we as owners/collectors/restorers/repairers do to increase
the public's desire for these items?  I would be interested to hear
your views.

Joyce Brite
brite@ksu.edu       http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~brite/