The COAA membership is not necessarily a reflection of new interest
in mechanical music.  I do not know how many COAA members are new to
mechanical music, but I would be willing to bet that the bulk of its
membership are people who already belonged to some other hobby group
related to mechanical music.

If you took all the new members from all the mechanical music hobby
groups, it would not bode well for the future of mechanical music hobby
groups if they desire to expand membership.  COAA is the new kid on the
block, thus it is attracting new members more rapidly than the older
mechanical music hobby groups.  Most of its members also belong to
MBSI, AMICA or both.

If one looks at the history of the older groups, a similar pattern
would emerge.  MBSI is the oldest of the three groups.  It had rapid
growth at its beginning.  AMICA formed because there were disgruntled
members of MBSI who wanted to emphasize pianos rather than music boxes.
They also had rapid growth at its beginning.

COAA begin as ABOA when there were some disgruntled members of MBSI
who preferred street and carousel organs to music boxes and/or pianos.
They also objected to the large registration fees charged to go to organ
rallies in the middle west.  COAA formed because there was disagreement
among many members as to the direction ABOA was going.  There have been
rumbling among some members of COAA that they emphasize large organs as
opposed to small street organs.

By their very nature, mechanical music hobby groups will never achieve
extremely large memberships because mechanical music was never a
significant part of the social fabric of American society.

Gary Craig