Folks,  With the passing of Harvey Roehl and other early collectors and
restorers, I've become concerned that priceless information as well as
wonderful anecdotes and stories are being lost without documentation.
Fortunately, Harvey was an avid writer and correspondent, but how many
other pioneer collectors and restorers have we lost whose knowledge,
let alone skills are now gone forever?

As a producer of television shows, including many documentaries for
cable networks like Discovery and The Learning Channel, I've decided
that I'd like to try to videotape some interviews with early collectors
and restorers to preserve at least some of their experience.  There
have been some great historians and chroniclers of the hobby and the
industry it celebrates.

People like Q. David Bowers did some landmark work in the 1970s.  His
"Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments" is a timeless treasure
of scholarly work, but his medium was the printed word only and can't
capture they way video can the personality and enthusiasm of an
individual.

Clearly, preserving a restoration expert's skills on tape is an
entirely separate matter -- one which is difficult at best, as anyone
whose ever tried to use a "how to" video knows.  Rather, my desire is
to seek out the people who located instruments in their original
locations and who met and interviewed original manufacturers and
servicers of instruments like Ed Link and Farney Wurlitzer.

I have recorded many oral histories in this manner, including over 200
interviews for the 10-hour "History of Rock 'N Roll" on which I was a
supervising producer.  Those interviews have become fodder for a number
of other fine documentaries.  It is my hope that interviews of pioneer
collectors might be of value to future collectors, students and
restorers.  I'm also hopeful that this work could contribute to the
eventual creation of a documentary about automatic musical instruments
-- about which I've tried to interest Discovery, the History Channel
and various other outlets with no luck to date.

Now an open question:  Whom should I interview?  Whom would our fellow
MMD'ers nominate for such an endeavor?

Best regards,
Marc Sachnoff

PS: I'm still looking for five original art glass panels for my
Seeburg C.

 [ My personal guidelines are at http://mmd.foxtail.com/HallOfFame/
 [ including those with "significant impact upon the industry."
 [ Thus we should also consider the contributions of the manufacturers,
 [ prominent investors, energetic dealers and salespersons -- all
 [ those folks who bring or brought new mechanical music instruments
 [ to todays (shrinking!) market.  While we're all thinking about it,
 [ send some more nominations for the Hall of Fame page, too!
 [ -- Robbie