I really enjoy the listings of places musical and mechanical when they
are submitted here and thought I should share parts of a letter I just
wrote to the new owners of the establishment given below.

I know it 'tis the season to be nice, and I know I should say nothing
rather than to say something bad about someone, but I would hate for
anyone connected to this great forum to be as disappointed as I was
recently when I visited my childhood home of Sarasota, Florida this
holiday.

Sarasota was a magical place for a child to grow up.  With the Ringling
Museum, the winter home of the circus (and its performers) and
beautiful waterways and weather, some think it is heaven. My passion
for mechanical music was most likely started my an elementary school
trip to Horne's (later Bellm's) Cars And Music of Yesterday, right
across the street from the Ringling Home and Museum.

Through the 50's, 60's 70's and 80's, I never gave up a chance to go
to, and take people to, the largest collection of self playing music a
kid could ever imagine.  A big building crammed full of players,
orchestrions, calliopes, band and dance hall organs, most in great
playing condition and demonstrated for the tour and many more which
could be played between tours for your loose change.  It -was- a large
collection and a magical place.  But no more.

Apparently, Mr. Bellm, who I remember as always being around and
willing to give you a little more for your money by showing you the
back or insides of a big band organ while it was playing or a current
project being restored or repaired, has sold the attraction and the
collection has been mostly liquidated.

What is left in a small room, is perhaps 6 players and push ups, a
couple of music boxes, a small band organ and a nickelodeon, a few disk
boxes (Reginas and a Stella, which we were informed were much too
valuable to play) and a bunch of phonographs.  All of the 4 players
demonstrated were just barely working, and all (except the organ, which
was playing without percussion or bells), horribly out of tune.  The
nickelodeon was playing with what sounded like feltless hammers.

If all of this wasn't bad enough, our tour guide was almost laughably
ignorant of her subject, but even this didn't keep her from giving a
great deal of erroneous information. The star of the collection was,
according to our guide, a small Gem crank organ (with one cob), even
though it had a very pronounced accent every turn.  We were not allowed
to linger to read some of the literature (which obviously our guide had
never bothered to do), but told we had to come back in an hour when the
next tour started.

I think that my disappointment comes not so much from being ripped off
for $10 each, but knowing that the uninformed public is walking out of
this place probably thinking that it's no wonder these instruments died
in the 20's, anything that sounded so bad, certainly isn't worth
saving.  Some of our subscribers have wondered why prices for their
instruments have remained flat and even lost value, well, its places
like this that help.

I guess we all must work harder to get the real sound and quality of
this era acknowledged by the general public.  Also tell the people who
allow poor performing machines to be demonstrated that you know the
difference between a properly functioning one and theirs, and what a
disservice they are doing to both themselves and the whole genre.

If you are like me, you probably are willing to go miles out of your
way to see a few automatic musical instruments.  My advice is to skip
this tourist trap, or better yet, call and ask them to sell you
something.  Any where else is a better place for this collection.

Norman Narmore

 [ You're not the only person to be quite disappointed!  Scott Currier
 [ discovered last August that owner Walt Bellm had sold the museum,
 [ and Nancy Fratti said he was happily touring the country in his
 [ motor home.  We don't know any more than that.  What is the museum
 [ now called?  -- Robbie