Dear MMDs,  The traditional large auction of mechanical music and
automatas will take place in Chartres (1 hour from Paris, France) on
Sunday Dec. 7th.  Ca 200 items for sale :

- About 40 good automatas, by Vichy (a barrel organ player, a tympanon
player, a banjo player), Roullet-Decamps (A peacock, A Chinese in a
jar), Renou (Clowns with a crate), Lambert,

- And several electrical automatas.

- And a rare religious embroidered picture featuring St Peter and the
cock singing (operated by bellows)

- Several singing birds : a very fine snuffbox by Rochat, several cages
by Bontems (a Pagoda), a rare 6 tunes musical box with a singing bird
in a round aperture on the front, etc.

- More than 50 items in mechanical music, amidst them :

- A Foucher-Gasparini 36 keys organ
- A Limonaire type organ, 34 keys
- A "Gavioli à Paris" portable cylinder 36 keys barrel organ
- Several coin-operated barrel pianos
- A Turkish portable piano
- Several organettes (a good Thibouville 36 keys, a serinette, etc.)
- A small 30 keys piano melodico
- A rare large Testophone (4 klaxons operated through a rubber bulb)
- A Rollmonica
- A vertical 50 cm disc Polyphon
- A large musical "chalet" with music and automatas
- A good "boîte de gare" by Henri Vidoudez, with 3 dancing dolls
- A large 6 tunes "Voix célestes" musical box
- A Stransky automatic piano
- Many disc or cylinder musical boxes, some keywound, and many musical
novelties (albums, tiles, clocks, tantalus, "speaking pictures" books,
etc.).
- Ca 15 fairground artifacts
- More than 50 lots of phonographs or related items
- Related books, documentation, etc.

The catalogue in French, and an English translation should be available
in PDF format from the MMD web site next week (thanks to Robbie Rhodes)
at  http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Auctions (Catalogues from previous
auctions remain visible there).

And it will be posted also on a French web site :
http://www.interencheres.com/28001 

All inquiries should be directed only to the auction house, Galerie
de Chartres, at chartres@galeriedechartres.com.geentroep [delete
".geentroep" to reply]

Their complete address, telephone, fax, etc. is on the "News" section
of the web site musicamecanica at :
http://www.musicamecanica.org/musica_mecanica/a/actu/index.html 

I wish you a fine day!  Best regards,
Philippe Rouillé
Paris, France
http://www.musicamecanica.org/ 

 [ Watch at http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Auctions/index.html 
 [ -- Robbie