Hi -- Many thanks to everyone for your opinions on the reprinting of
"Treasures of Mechanical Music." The majority prefer a reprinting of
the whole book, pictures and text, in one volume, corrected or not,
with additional information included in a separate supplement if
necessary.
Dave Bowers and I are willing to have another printing done if someone
wants to publish it, but I want to correct the mistakes first. The
printing flats are supposedly preserved somewhere in the National Book
Network warehouse. I don't know their condition. At one point, the
"Encyclopedia" flats needed to have some restoration done; Marty
Roenigk -- do you know the details?
The cost of reprinting "Treasures" will obviously be higher if the
flats are in bad condition. Most of the photos in "Treasures" are very
high quality and would benefit by a higher-quality printing job on
better paper than the original. This, too, will add to the cost.
Although "Treasures" is more technical than the "Encyclopedia", and
consequently has a more limited audience, there's also a much greater
pent-up demand for "Treasures." Only 1880 copies were originally
printed in 1981, compared to 18,000+ copies of the "Encyclopedia"
printed over a 25-year period.
Art Reblitz
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