My name is Richard Dutton and my interest in the mechanical music
area is collecting the wooden rollers with metal pins (called "cobs")
for the Gem and Concert roller organs.  I have a large collection of
cobs and am always looking for cobs that I do not have.  I also have
many (currently about 200) duplicate cobs (mostly popular and familiar
titles) to trade to other collectors.  If any of you has a cob that
I do not have and you would be willing to part with it.  I would offer
either $20 for it or any two cobs of your choice from my duplicates in
exchange for it.

I also know about 500 tunes on the roller organ by ear and would be
happy to try to identify cobs anyone has with missing, partial or
illegible labels.  People from all over the country have sent cobs or
cassette recordings of cobs for me to identify, and my success rate
has been about 90%  (I see that Nancy Fratti made a flattering and
unsolicited comment on my cob-identifying ability in the 4/23/97 MMD,
for which I thank her).  If you would like me to identify cobs, please
send the cobs themselves to my address below (I will pay return
shipping), send me a cassette recording of the cobs you would like
identified or even telephone me and play the unidentified cobs over
the phone.

My home address is 16 Bloomfield Way, Llewellyn Park, West Orange,
New Jersey 07052 and my home telephone number is 973- 669-4783.

I will mail anyone who is interested a "master list" of numbers and
titles of the 1,000-plus roller organ cobs that were made, along with
lists of the cobs I do not have and the cobs I currently have available
to trade.

Jody Kravitz asked me to write informational pieces on roller organ
cobs from time to time for the MMD, and what follows is my first effort
in this regard.  Please note that the cobs I am referring to are those
for the Gem and Concert roller organs, that is, pinned wooden cylinders
about 6-3/8 inches long and about 1-3/4 inches in diameter, with two
holes in one end and one hole in the other with labels (usually red and
sometimes buff-colored) on both ends, although they are often missing.
The similar-looking but much larger cobs for the Grand roller organ are
a different variety.

Richard Dutton


 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ A hearty Welcome to Richard, who used the old-fashioned type-
 [ writer to compose his letter of introduction and the interesting
 [ history following.  Jody received the article via fax, and used
 [ an optical character recognition (OCR) program to convert the fax
 [ message for publication in MMD.  We have tried to correct the errors
 [ introduced by the OCR process; hope we didn't miss any.
 [
 [ Richard is an avid reader of MMD, but he prefers not to correspond
 [ using his employer's e-mail at the office.  He will be happy to
 [ receive letters at his postal address above, and talk by telephone
 [ if a phone number is given.
 [
 [ -- Robbie