Societies were started with a few individuals who wanted to save their
heritage.  The instruments had become redundant, worthless, technically
and socially redundant.  Members wrote articles and books and
membership increased.  This provided the market to buy, restore and
sell.  Most restorers converted from other technically based skills
such as watch and clock repairers, home mechanics, etc.

Then the amateur enthusiasts entered the field, buying defective items
and attempting to restore them.  They learnt their skills intuitively,
by reading articles and specialist books and joining societies.  This
in turn produced the "professional" restorers, many expert, some good
in limited areas of work and, of course, those who were not so good!
The restorers are dying out.  Costs of repairs rise and take
unreasonable time; it is a major problem that has not been addressed.

As societies grew, tensions rose, causing fragmentation with separate
specialist societies, each with a narrower interest base.  They
survived for many years until all succumbed to the march of time as
the membership aged and new recruits tailed off.  The result was
foreseeable and inevitable; the market shrank.  Today, our hobby has
little public appeal, buyers are few and restoration has become the
preserve of either the rich or the exceptional enthusiast.

Collectors seem to attract no family interest.  Thus we "pop our clogs"
and "shuffle off this mortal coil," leaving a surfeit of our treasures
at risk.  The market gets temporarily saturated with few buyers.
Auction houses want exorbitant prices and buyer and seller premiums;
they do not want the lower end of the mechanical musical market.  At
the top end prices inflate, at the lower end they fall.

The things we treasured can land in the out-shed, the barn, the garage
or dumped -- just as they did all those years ago when technology made
them first redundant.  The risk today is not just lack of interest by
the modern generation; it is the possible loss of our treasures through
a second round of redundancy!  What goes around comes around.

What is in a name?  Unfortunately, what we love to collect has an
ugly name called mechanical music.  We use that name in our society
titles and logos.  An old adage is "Give a dog a bad name -- and hang
it!"  Is there nothing better to describe our hobby?

 [ "Automatic Music" connotes jukeboxes, so that's no improvement, and
 [ "Self-Playing Musical Instruments", although accurate, seems clumsy.
 [ I guess we're stuck with "Mechanical Music".  -- Robbie

Worse, the public perception of a musical box remains some cheap
jewellery box with a plastic dancing doll!  Like it or not, our
marketing policy is a failure.  There is nothing mechanical about the
sound of a simple musical box, which can delight the ears of young and
old however simple it may be; yet we tend to be elitist, sometimes
decrying a late, small instrument as inferior to the expensive early
ones.  Is there ever going to be an upturn?  Perhaps not, but our ideas
need to change.

If _mechanical music_ was a business, it is a failing one because
we have not adapted to the changing market.  We abhor the use of new
technology (unless it is a remote control for a band organ) and we
have failed to respond to fast communications that demand instant
gratification.

Many societies are going through another self-created crisis; it is
not fragmentation but the cry for more members and new blood at
committee.  There isn't any!  Instead of concentrating and trying to
manage the realities of the future, some turn upon each other, making
unrealistic demands from hard-working volunteers.  The "old guard" are
treated with contempt, blamed as self-interested cabals and described
as self-perpetuating oligarchies.  The result is tectonic schism
leading to self-destruction.  Thus the old and knowledgeable walk
away, membership divides into camps and the remaining not-so-young
instigators look for blame.

So, perhaps societies should concentrate on survival strategies and
not internal anarchy.  MMD participants have clearly defined major
problems.  Can those problems be contained, managed, overcome?  Or,
do we plan for liquidation?

The choices are stark but so is reality.  One of our tasks must be to
identify, record and preserve the best.  The other is to recognise that
the lower value items deserve respect, to be recorded and perhaps
marketed on a more realistic basis.  Provenance always enhances value
and much of what we possess either has no provenance or lacks the
record.

That is where societies can play a major part.  We need to co-operate
and to communicate our "wares", the beauty of the music from a past age
and the generation of new music played on antique instruments -- and
much more.

Paul Bellamy