Dear MMDs,  In Chartres (France), a quiet old city one hour by train
or by car from Paris and two large international airports, there are
for many years now two mechanical music auctions per year conducted
by Galerie de Chartres, and you can see the catalogues of the next,
and the past auctions on the MMD web site.

The next auction is on Sunday, May 21st 2006, beginning at 2 P.M.
Amidst the highlights (about 250 lots) are :

- Many fine automatas by Lambert, Roullet-Decamps (La magicienne),
Vichy (Le vendangeur, le joueur d'orgue de Barbarie), etc.

- A fine collection of 14 good modern automatas by Marie-Madeleine
Kaeppelin

- Singing birds : a snuffbox by Bruguier (complete, but needing
restoration) and several cages or bushes by Bontems

- Good disc and cylinder musical boxes (hidden bells, voix célestes),
especially a very fine Bremond, 6 tunes, with 4 interchangeable
cylinders (36 cm)

- Several musical picture-clocks and many musical novelties

- A rare and large Amelotti accordion (to restore).  Several organs and
barrel pianos

- Many organettes and serinettes and merline

- Many Phonographs and rare records

- Fairground artifacts or sculptures (by Bayol, Muller, Matthieu) and
a few arcade machines

- a lot of good and various documentation and old prints and postcards

The day before (Saturday, May 20th) there is a large auction of several
hundred dolls.  For info, or to get a catalogue :

  Galerie de Chartres
  Tel. +33 (0) 2 37 88 28 28
  Fax : + 33 (0) 2 37 88 28 20
  E-mail : chartres@galeriedechartres.com

Thanks to Robbie Rhodes, Joyce Brite and Jody Kravitz, the catalogue
begins to be posted on the MMD web site at
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Auctions/ (Photos will come soon ...).

With best regards,
Philippe Rouillé (Paris, France)
http://www.musicamecanica.org/