Eliyahu Shahar writes:

> Where does the magic number of 1-1/2" come from?  Is that the
> cylinder diameter?

Yes.  I was being slightly satirical in this reference.  But is it
really something to joke about?  Sometimes I think that is what is
missing -- the humor.  I think the term "Tinkel box" was coined as
a way of pointing out the absurdity of those who will put them on a
pedestal (literally!).  (Tim Trager has the most wonderful sense of
humor of anyone I have ever met.)

> My plea is that we stop the snobbery and degradation of those who
> don't have the most expensive or rare instruments.

"Amen" to that.  Mostly what is at issue are personal attacks or
deification of others which have split the groups.  I have told Robbie
and others that it is like walking on eggshells as to what to say and
what not to say.  Hiding the true history of manufacture is wrong;
history changes as we learn more, it is a constant feedback loop.
All I am asking is that those who know a bit of what has happened be
willing to discuss it.

Take Charles Babbage as an example: he collected automata.  Some
of what he learned found his way into a set of axioms or concepts
qualified in the 1840s as something called the Analytical Engine.

Somehow Babbage met Charles Dickens.  Dickens used Babbage to mock the
eccentric inventor in "Little Dorrit".  Ada, the daughter of Lord Byron,
passed away in Dickens arms after asking Dickens to read from "Dombey
and Son", a novel written in Switzerland about clocks and watches and
the London "Trade."  Much of the action takes place in an instrument
shop on the Strand.

All this was forgotten until a man named Johnny Von Neuman pointed
out the research of this Lucasian professor.  He was asked what his
inspiration was.

This set off a series of university research that in the end vindicated
Babbage and it was determined that a Swedish science editor built the
Difference Engine.  Babbage was satisfied as he got the Duke of Wellington
to promote this in the 1850 exhibition.  (The Iron Duke was senile by
then; however, he comes alive as Babbage describes him playing ball
with the children, because no one would come to the anteroom where the
machine was exhibited.)  A lesser man than Von Neuman would have taken
the credit for himself.

The machine was broken up and parts went to Australia with Babbage's
heirs.  More recently, the machine that calculates the differences was
reconstructed and exists again in London, where it sits with the
Swedish copy.

But this has to re-write history.  So we are now teaching that the
Victorian scientist Charles Babbage invented the computer.  But Queen
Victoria died in 1901.  Due to the simplification most people now
associate Babbage with the Edwardian era, but Babbage died in the
1850s or '60s.  He was born about the time of the French Revolution.
A recent film recreates H.G. Wells' Time Machine and uses Babbage's
computer as a controller.  No wonder the time machine failed as that
was an obsolete 60-year-old design in 1899!

What does this have to do with mechanical music?  Well, Babbage hated
German bands.  He claimed that they disturbed his concentration and
partially blamed them for his failure in completing the computer in his
lifetime.  He got a government grant from Parliament for his studies.
After his mechanic spent all the funds, Babbage went for more money,
but Parliament would not give him the cash.  But they did pass his bill
to ban the playing of barrel organs in the street.

It has also been pointed out that the "Victorian" era had no trouble
with the technology of musical box manufacture, with tolerances that
far exceeded the demands Babbage made on his mechanics.

As for collecting, I have a little bit of everything.  Mostly I collect
books and ephemera (magazines).  I have a roller (cob) organ that sits
next to what I call a musical box, a number of singing birds, a few
automata, a Caliola, and parts for a 48-key band organ.  Most of this
needs restoration or a lot of tender loving care.

The main point is that, by not sharing information, those who feel that
the collecting of antiques is exponential, and not driven by boom bust
as new information is learned, are actually Hiesenberg observers who
cause the very bust they fear by trying to manipulate an ever-expanding
market by not doing anything.

There is nothing wrong with hoarding for the lean times -- that is human
nature.  I think there is a tendency to forget the that milk does not
keep more than a few days even when refrigerated.

In effect what I am collecting is the memories and emotion of a moment
of time.  Is that not what music represents?

Julie Porter