Dear MMD, In response to John's suggestion that the MMD host its
own Internet auction, I wanted to share some of my experiences with
Internet vs. live mechanical music auctions from an auctioneer's
perspective.  Having held live mechanical music sales in both Britain
and the USA (Christie's in London, and since June last year at
Skinner's in Boston), the "audio visual element" is definitely an
important factor in reaching potential buyers.

The advantages of a live auction over an Internet auction are probably
more important for this subject than for any other: mechanical musical
instruments are made to be played and enjoyed and listened to in
person!  Without hearing an instrument playing "live", it's difficult
to reach a decision as to how much (and even whether) to bid for it.
There are many good venues that run specialist sales and also societies
such as MBSGB, which runs a regular mechanical music sale each summer.

Frauds aside, eBay seems to be a great place to buy mechanical music.
Hunting and bidding for rare items that other collectors have
overlooked is addictive, especially when the majority of the items
are fresh to the market, often from a family or estate.  However,
I've also noticed that the top-end mechanical music items (especially
automata) will often not reach the same buyers that they would at
a live sale, and consequently sell for less than they're worth or end
the auction unsold against the reserve.

At the opposite end of the scale are the multiple fakes that turn up
on eBay, particularly the latest breed of shadow box scenes and the
ubiquitous girl-in-basket automaton, usually with a fabricated label
purporting to be from Lambert, Decamps or sometimes even Jaquet Droz.
Sometimes they even sell.

Over the past year, Skinner has been listing items on eBay to coincide
with the live auction and allow concurrent live and internet bidding.
While this works best for "collectors" items such as the cheaper toys,
dolls or cameras, it seems to produce less of a result for mechanical
music sales, as most collectors still prefer to attend a sale in person
and see the item before bidding on it.  Maybe a combination of live and
internet auction is the future for buying and selling in this subject?

Nick Hawkins - Skinner Inc.
Boston