Hi all,  I've been friends with Nisan Cohen for many years and
have watched him build his museum from an idea to a viable museum.
Although he never had the depth of pieces found in a place like
Utrecht, it was certainly a respectable presentation and worthy
of visiting.

What made the Nisco Museum more special was his humor in presenting
the instruments.  Nisan had stories to tell about each piece and he
presented the history of the musical box and automatic music in a way
that the MP4 crowd could appreciate the difference and uniqueness of
the era.

When reports of the Mount Carmel forest fire started to hint that it
was going towards Ein Hod (the artist colony in the Carmel Mountains
just south of Haifa, where Nisan displayed his collection), I was
worried about what would be the future of the museum.  As Vincent
Morgan reported yesterday, there was damage to the museum, apparently
severe.

I haven't yet been to see Nisan since the fire, but he was on the TV
news last night and they went through the museum and it wasn't pretty.
He held up the mechanism from a Kalliope 8" bell box (for which he had
a particular fondness) to demonstrate that it had no box and everything
around the mechanism burned.  Then he picked up a cylinder mechanism
that also had no case.

He had a huge collection of over 100 manivelles, several displayed in
a glass display case.  He tried turning the handles of a couple of them
and they didn't play.  (I don't know why; it seems logical that if they
look okay they should work.  I'll have to take one apart and see what's
the story with it.)

Finally he played one of his favorite boxes, an interchangeable.  The
case was charred but it played well -- sounded like it wasn't damaged
at all.  Who can tell what happened with the other cylinders, though.
I'm interested to know what will be with his disc music boxes.

His Steinway was charred and needs to be repaired, his monkey organ
didn't make any sound, my old Knabe Ampico piano was charred, his XY
Orchestrelle apparently was untouched (though he doesn't know if it
works).  It really was depressing.  It will be interesting to see what
these instruments will do when the electricity is restored.  One step
at a time, of course!

Tomorrow or Wednesday I'll go up there to help him assess the damage,
to see what can be salvaged and what is gone forever.  It was indeed
a tragedy!

Eli Shahar
Tel Aviv, Israel

 [ The Mount Carmel forest fire is now extinguished.  An impartial
 [ report compiled by Environment News Service is available at
 [ http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2010/2010-12-06-01.html 
 [ -- Editor (Robbie)