Dang!  If Dustin Dang hasn't been able to get any information on
Thorens disc boxes from his local library or the Internet, he didn't
go about it right.  The first thing he needs to do is look in the MMD
subject archives (http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/KWIC/index.html)
under "Thorens" to find 100+ postings on that company and its products.

Then he needs to Google (i.e. not use one of the other, inferior search
engines) "thorens," qualifying the term with other search-narrowing
terms like "disc".  The reason for that is to screen out the modern
electronics firm that uses the Thorens name.  In the narrowed Thorens
Google search, he will find, inter alia, the HensTooth Discs web site,
which lists Thorens-compatible discs.

Lastly, Dustin needs to grab his local library's reference librarian by
the neck and make him search OCLC for the various books on music boxes.
There isn't, to be frank, a lot written about Thorens, but there is
a little information in the Bowers "Encyclopedia" and more in Arthur
W.J.G. Ord-Hume's "The Musical Box: A Guide For Collectors."

While Dustin still has a grip on his reference librarian's neck (although
a good reference librarian shouldn't need force to get him to do his
job; we librarians live to help!), he should get the librarian to
borrow for him, by inter-library loan, any of the books that he wants
to see that his library doesn't have.

Dustin asks about clubs in the San Francisco Bay area.  If he joins the
Musical Box Society International and then joins its Golden Gate Chapter,
he will find the club and the like-minded people that he seeks.

Matthew Caulfield,
Irondequoit, New York