Thanks to all for the responses to my post on Revisionist History
on YouTube, sent to me here on MMD and at my home email address.
All were pretty much in agreement that there is a problem, but a few
asked (such as Bryan on the Friday MMD), "Why take it seriously?"
Aside from the spreading of incorrect information on a wide scale,
there is another reason. Those of us that do own machines know that we
are just the temporary caretakers of these marvelous devices. A day
is coming when we, or our estate, will dispose of our treasures.
Sadly this is not my first experience with incorrect "cyber
information". One of my other hobbies has been collecting gas pump
globes for 30 years. Two years ago I had two nationally known auction
companies dispose of 350 of my globes. Two of the globes were
extremely rare green ripple glass globes with original faces, one
of which was the _only known_ example.
Prior to the auction an inexperienced neophyte globe collector stated
on a petroleum collector web site that the rarer of the two must be
a fake because it was not shown in any of the "globe books". This
statement generated many opinions, several of which were also
incorrect. The final result is the rarer of the two globes brought
$3500 _less_ than the other one. This was enough to demonstrate to me
what incorrect "cyber info" can do.
I am sure the recent incorrect YouTube statement that "the Artizan
organ has a Wurlitzer facade attached" could easily lower its sale
price some day.
Now I am sure most of us do not care if someone on line expounds
on alien abductions, black helicopters, lack of birth certificates,
etc., but if the incorrect information written concerns your organ or
mechanical music machine and may some day actually cost you or your
estate money, it is time to delete or correct such errors ASAP.
This is why we should "take it seriously"!
Jim Welty
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