Thank you, Wallace, for all you do to promote the organs and your
dedication to them, but you missed the point by excluding other
instruments for museums and the arts.

Street and band organs are designed either to be loud to attract
attention or they had a tethered wild animal and an exotically dressed
crank turner to attract your money.  The internal upright player or
nickelodeon piano were also designed for the same type of customers but
were not meant to be portable to take to today's outdoor organ events
at amusement parks and street fairs.  Reproducing pianos nor any size
band organs were never designed to be marketed or sold to the masses.

As to the cost, most upright players are under $100 today and many
reproducing grands on eBay are in the $2000 range, so you cannot say
they are for the "Artsy Elite" and should be in museums.  Most band
organs of any size are in the $8000 to $10,000 range and dance hall
organs are even twice that, and even a Raffin kit organ is more than
an unrestored player piano.

The days of nickelodeons in pizza and ice cream parlors are all but
gone.  Computer disc pianos are prevalent at retail stores but are
marketed as a background instrument, like for putting a CD in a player
to entertain guests at a party.  That also goes for the music being
piped in on the majority of carousels in America today that once had
a real organ.  Please don't demean the rest of us who spend hundreds of
hours a year demonstrating player and reproducing pianos or nickelodeons.
They are now being played for the "Art and Elite" in nursing homes,
movie palaces or at our homes, and yes, those "horrible" museums.

Yes, most organizations are having trouble with membership but a lot of
that is due to aging of members and a major disadvantage of visibility,
not lack of "fun".

Kurt Morrison
Tacoma, Washington