Any advertiser will tell you, you have to get 'em young.  I was seven
when my grandma took me to "House on the Rock" near Madison, Wisconsin
(scoff if you must.)  I have been obsessed with mechanical music ever
since.  My fiancée grew up near Virginia-Nevada City, Montana, and
luckily encourages the habit.

I wish that I could afford a band organ and take it all over to shows
and play it for people.  Unfortunately there are no lost band organ
shelters for me to adopt from, (and to extend the metaphor to the
ridiculous) as I cannot afford a purebred.  For many of us it has to be
simply a matter of money.  How many of us have the desire and the skill
to be able take care and show one of these marvels?  Now, of the hands
left, who's got the bucks?

I've heard the complaints about the teenagers and their bad manners,
the numbers of people not introduced.  Well, how many of you organ
owners have ever contacted your local school music teacher and offered
a demonstration to the music students?  First off, you are targeting
your audience.  Teenagers in mobs are not an ideal crowd.  But you get
some music students in an education situation and you will have a much
better response.

I'm sure most of you take your children and grandchildren to see
exhibitions of mechanical musical instruments.  Patronize places like
the coffee shop near my house that has a Cremona Orchestrion.

Above all, if you are a collector, _show_ your instruments.  There are
many great private collections full of amazing instruments kept in
tiptop shape that _no one_ sees.  Yes, but they are preserved!

For what -- their own declining value because they are under such lock
and key that nobody but a select few can remember that they were ever
made?  Besides, after you die your kids are gonna sell em for pocket
change anyway just to be rid of "that old junk."  Let those that love
and appreciate them enjoy them.

Terry Houghawout once summed it up for me pretty well:  "There are two
methods for restoring an organ.  First way is to meticulously paint and
gild and preserve the instrument sparing no expense, lock it up in your
house and maybe only three people a year get to enjoy it.  The other
way is to slap some paint on it, bounce it around a trailer and maybe
thousands get to see it."

Ted Konetski
170000 Blocks north of the Alamo in Ft. Worth, Texas
(I really need to get down there and meet Ed Gaida.)