Selling to collectors abroad and historic context of instruments.

Following my last posting it has been interesting that I have received
a large number of emails agreeing with my stance but none have been
posted on the MMD, is that they fear upsetting people.  I think from
their comments that many people (perhaps in the USA) don't understand
such export stops.

In the UK, to simplify the procedure, _everything_ over a certain age
has to have an export licence.  Anybody can ask for an export stop but
there has to be good reasons.  For a mechanical organ such as a Gavioli,
the criteria would not be, as one contributor said, that as it was made
in France then there would be its home.  But, that if it was used in
the UK -- and in an organs case used in the Fairgrounds in this country
part of our folk / social history -- a good case could be made.

The instrument would have to be in good original condition and not
somewhat a bitzer improved.  An organ that has undergone so much
restoration and rebuilding that it is no more a Gavioli than a new
organ would _not_ fulfil the requirements.  If a stop is placed on
an item it is not just up to a museum to buy it, as also mentioned.
It could be negotiated that it would be sold to a private buyer for
the same sum.

To take an art analogy, you could not stop the sale on an old master
painting if much of it had been repainted and was no longer the work
of the artist.

I do agree with the contributor that some museums, especially municipal
museums, are not the best place as they store them away or in fact they
display them as a static object.  Though it is important to realise
that all UK museums and the International Code for museums world wide
states that when an object comes into a museum it comes in to the
collection for ever for today's audiences, your children's and their
children's ect.  In theory if you played an instrument every day all
day the wear and tear would gradually mean that the instrument would
no longer be the work of say Marenghi, but the conservators restorers!

Many collectors do not see the historic integrity of mechanical
music as important.  Add a MIDI player, repaint the whole thing, make
it like new, replace whole parts of an instrument with non-original and
not-to-pattern parts i.e. not the same style as the original maker.
Do they have air conditioning, proper fire systems, cataloguing and
research?  Or do they just see them as things to own that make a very
pleasant noise?  A question to ponder.

There has been some terrible things done to instruments on both sides
of the pond.  Wonderful barrel organs enlarged and converted to book
operation.  Original 87-key Gavioli's converted to 89-key instruments.
Instruments that have been in their original state for years have been
so-called improved when in fact they have been ruined and lost much of
their historic importance.

Although I will miss the great 110-key Gavioli in this country, one
consolation is that it was converted for showland use by Chiappa to a
98-key instrument for Fred Grays Scenic railway in about 1920.  It was
then used in the Scenic Railway until the 1950s but it was probably not
playing then.

I can remember it in preservation when rallied by Bill Jonas in the
early 1960s.  Now, apart from the most splendid front, beautiful carved
semi clad maidens, much behind is new.  Therefore the new owner really
has a largely new organ with a few Gavi bits but a _great_ front!

If collectors want to read about these extra large organs and the
magnificent machines that they inhabited which the USA never saw the
like there is an excellent book 'The Electric Scenic Railway' by Kevin
Scrivens and Stephen Smith, price £20.  It is full of technical info
and photographs and as one person said it does give a historic context.

You don't have to have a Victorian railway to run steam trains and
you don't need a full vintage fairground to save and display an organ
in context.  So let's hope no more wonderful items of our fairground
heritage are lost to another country.  We have already lost so much to
the highest bidder and although everything should and cannot be saved
some things should and must be saved.

I do wonder what would be the feelings if a British wealthy collector
purchased a piece of American history and then shipped it to the UK?

Perhaps a place for such an organ would be the National Fairground
Museum in Devon in the UK where they have some very unusual artifacts
including a complete ride sold to the States and luckily rescued by a
group of enthusiasts in the UK and shipped back and restored otherwise
it probably would have been sold off piece by piece to collectors of
carousel art.  I am sure the debate around the export of instruments
and the best home for them will run and run.

I would suggest that if anybody wants to comment on my posting that
they do post their replies on the MMD for all to see and read.

Jonathan Holmes