Mortier Organ "Taj Mahal" & G. W. McKinnon
By Bob Conant
Dear Folks, As Hauke Marxsen says, the Taj Mahal is currently in
Australia. To my knowledge it was never owned by George MacKinnon
but rather by Hathaway and Bowers and later American International
Galleries (AIG, also Q. David Bowers). They sold it to Retonio's (?)
in Switzerland and from there it went to Australia. The facade was
one of the most elaborate ever built, although the organ was smallish
as Mortier dance organs went.
G.W. MacKinnon was located in Charlotte, North Carolina while Dave
Bowers' enterprises were on the West Coast. When Hathaway and Bowers
moved and became AIG, MacKinnon did use their old Santa Fe location
for awhile. Both listed some of each other's instruments as "on con-
signment" from time to time so maybe that's where the confusion of
ownership comes in.
G.W. is still very much alive and is manufacturing and selling a line
of "MacCordions", automated orchestrions featuring an accordion as the
main musical instrument. He did offer these as roll playing but now
only has a MIDI controlled machine. He and/or his son have attended
several recent MBSI Conventions with sample instruments.
Hope this clears rather than muddies the waters.
Bob Conant
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(Message sent Fri 16 Apr 1999, 22:10:55 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
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