In reference to Tom McAuley's posting last week, yes, I once maintained
the Bovey music machine collection in Virginia City and Nevada City,
Montana, but I haven't worked there for over 20 years.

Before 1972, members of the Wurdeman family of Minneapolis had worked
there all summer to take care of the instruments.  When Ozzie Wurdeman
became ill, Paul Eakins, another major collector and friend of the
Wurdemans, called me to see if I might have time to take over the job.

One of the attractions in Virginia City is the Opera House, where fine,
authentic Victorian melodramas and musical revues are performed each
summer.  The first season that I worked there, the orchestra pit had
flooded and frozen during the preceding winter, leaving the bottom
twelve inches or so of the large Cremona photoplayer encased in a big
block of ice.  My job was to get it playing again during the last week
of rehearsals before opening day.  Completing the job in the
barely-thawed pit in the unheated building was only made possible by
one of those noisy, smelly outdoor kerosene heaters.  With the help of
the curator, John Ellingsen, we got the photoplayer fixed well enough
to be played manually by the end of the dress rehearsal the night
before the opening performance.

Ozzie and his family had spent the whole summer each year maintaining
the collection, but I only had time to spend two or three weeks there
annually.  From the first visit, I decided not to work on the dozens of
arcade machines, but instead focused my time on the 40 or so automatic
pianos and organs.  This gave me time each year to tune them as
necessary and to provide enough servicing and repairs to keep them in
presentable playing condition for another season.

Charlie Bovey and his wife Sue founded the Bovey Restorations in 1943.
After Charlie passed away in 1978 funds for music machine maintenance
became even more limited than they had been.  In 1980, I built my
present shop and hired several employees.  The requirements of managing
new employees made it temporarily impossible to spend weeks at a time
away from my shop, and I stopped making the annual service trip to
Virginia City.

John Ellingsen, the curator who worked very hard to arrange for the
purchase of the Bovey Restorations by the state of Montana several
years ago, together with a few other people unknown to me, have taken
care of the instruments since then.  I really enjoyed my relationship
with the Bovey family and working for the Bovey Restorations in the
1970s, but the sign in the Nevada City Music Hall stating that I
maintain the collection hasn't been correct for a very long time.

One of the greatest antiques that Charlie and Sue ever owned was the
spectacular Eden Palais Salon Carousel, which is now in the Sanfilippo
Collection.  It was set up in a large combine shed on the Bovey's ranch
in Great Falls, Montana.  The Boveys rarely showed it to anyone, due to
their concerns over security.  After I worked for them for several
years, they invited me to see it.

Entering the building the first time and seeing the unrestored
facade with its immense stained glass butterflies and life-size carved
horses looming overhead was an experience I'll never forget.  With no
electricity in the building, only dim light filtered in through a
skylight while John Ellingsen shone a flashlight through the cobwebs
illuminating the dark corners.

The ticket booth, platform and horses, ornate brass railings,
rocking gondolas, elaborate paintings, impressive 89-key Gavioli
fairground organ with its leaded glass front, and traction engine
were almost surrealistic.  With just a little imagination, one could
smell the coal smoke and hear the cheerful music accompanied by the
low rumble of the platform turning on its track.  The fantastic
entertainment palace which had brought joy to the lives of thousands
of people was hibernating, waiting for someone to come along who would
restore it to its previous glory.

During that visit, I photographed the Eden Palais.  It was my
pictures which were later used for selling it to Jasper Sanfilippo.
It was also my negotiation with Sue Bovey that made the transaction
possible, as she was extremely cautious of any other people who were
involved.  Jasper bought the Eden Palais in 1988.  A book could be
written about its restoration, which took more than 10 years.

Before Charlie died, he invited me to look through his files of
historic material in his office in Great Falls and to copy anything
of interest.  Among the treasures were the historic roll arranging
scale sticks from the B.A.B. Organ Company of Brooklyn, New York.
These had been used by music arrangers to make music rolls and
cardboard books for hundreds of different European and American
fairground organs during the heyday of B.A.B.

Although I had collected musical scales for automatic instruments
since the 1960s, it was this collection, together with an equally
large group of German orchestrion scales from Eugene DeRoy of Belgium
that I acquired through Dave Bowers, which gave me the idea to write
"Treasures of Mechanical Music" with Dave in 1981.  While I still have
Xerox copies of all the B.A.B. scales, the originals mysteriously
vanished from Virginia City after Charlie willed them to me, but before
I had a chance to pick them up.  Hopefully, they will show up again
sometime in the future.  It will be interesting to learn who has been
taking care of them for all these years.

Because of my prior affiliation with the Bovey family and the Bovey
Restorations, the State of Montana contacted me several months ago
requesting my evaluation of the music collection.  I am currently in
the process of providing consultation regarding the best way to get the
instruments back into playing condition.

Today, most of the displays in the Nevada City music hall are in the
same locations where they have been since the 1970s.  The Bale of Hay
Saloon in Virginia City suffered a devastating fire in the early 1980s.
The late George Baker purchased several charred instruments and sold
them to collectors around the country.  These included a Seeburg G,
one of the two Seeburg Js, a Seeburg KT with flute pipes, the Cremona J
from Excelsior Park in Minneapolis, a Regina Concerto, and others.
At least one orchestrion, the Cremona J, has been restored and is
currently in a well-known California collection.

One of the Bovey's two Seeburg Js was complete, while the other was
missing its pipes.  Fortunately, the complete one had been moved to the
Nevada City Music Hall before the fire, so it escaped damage.  (One of
the first things that Charlie had me do when I worked there was to
remove the Deagan Una-Fon bells shown atop the J without pipes in
Harvey Roehl's "Player Piano Treasury."  They had been an interesting
attraction but weren't original to the piano and needed repairs.)
Charlie and Sue's son Ford later took the complete J home before
selling the Bovey Restorations to the state of Montana.  This is the
J that was sold at the Kruse auction yesterday.

My new book, "The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments",
includes a detailed history and illustrated tour of the Bovey
Restorations, including beautiful portraits of the 89-key Gavioli
fairground organ that is still in the Nevada City Music Hall, and the
restored Eden Palais now in the Sanfilippo Collection.  We're in the
process of selecting pre-press and printing firms at this time.

Art Reblitz