To the extent that anybody is interested there is a huge opportunity
for all of us to help promote the hobby.  This is continuing my
comments that in our field prices are dropping and fewer eager new
faces are appearing.

The reality is that once someone becomes a serious collector, he or she
usually stays with the hobby forever.  Very few people leave automatic
musical instruments, sell out, and then take up collecting cars, coins,
stamps, etc.  So, the problem is not retention of old names, it is
getting new ones.

Today the novelty of seeing and hearing a self-playing piano is passé
in comparison to the attention-getting other competition on the
Internet.  And for instruments, I suppose someone could sit down and
spend two hours on YouTube and say, "Why do I need to _own_ one of
these?  I'll just watch them on the screen."

Although we have more labor-saving devices than ever, time is more
precious than it has ever been before.  Paradoxical.

Years ago the Vestal Press, Mechanical Music Center (Bill Edgerton),
Hathaway & Bowers and American International Galleries spawned many
thousands of new collectors, many of whom joined the societies.
I think MBSI was about 2,900 members in the late 1970s.  Bellm's
Cars & Music of Yesterday, Svoboda's Nickelodeon Tavern, Disneyland,
Knott's Berry Farm, Gay Nineties Village (Paul Eakins), and other
museums had untold numbers of visitors.  Today most all of these are
gone!  (Interestingly, in Holland, Germany, England, Switzerland, and
other European places public musical museums are alive and well!)

It would seem to me that the number 1, 2, and 3 priorities of MBSI
and AMICA would be to work in harness (if politically possible) or
else work separately, to develop a committee of worker bees of proven
entrepreneurship and business ideas and set about promoting the hobby.

The Carousel Organ group has outdoor rallies open to all comers.  MBSI
and AMICA have chapter meetings, but these are in private homes.  I am
not sure that someone hosting such a meeting in their home in Illinois,
California, or New York would want to advertise that anyone can come.
This is a problem.

Years ago in California we used to advertise in the Los Angeles Times
and elsewhere the events at Hathaway & Bowers and, later, at American
International Galleries.  Siegfried Wendel saw his first orchestrion
after he casually walked into H&B.  J.B. Nethercutt stopped by one
Saturday afternoon when some of his staff wanted a destination for
driving a half dozen classic cars.  We generated _many_ serious
collectors.  Food for thought...

Respectfully,
Dave Bowers
Wolfeboro Falls, New Hampshire

 [ Terry Hathaway, Dave's partner at Hathaway & Bowers, tells his
 [ "Memories of a Collector (How the idea of collecting begins)" at
 [ http://mechanicalmusicpress.com/history/articles/collmems.htm 
 [ -- Robbie