[ Scotty Greene wrote in 160109 MMDigest:

> There is a responsibility, as museum tour guides, to educate the
> public and kill crazy stories with real facts.

I've come across two instances of docents telling people mega-
exaggerated values on instruments.

1. In Proctor, Vermont, is a brick Victorian home that "a ship captain
built for his English bride, then she either died or went back to
England" when it was done.  There was (in the 1980s) a 15" Criterion on
a matching storage drawer.  The docent wound the crank a few times and
the disc played about one-third revolution.  She told everyone that it
was valued at over $10,000.

2. At what used to be the Utica Club Brewery (now a micro-brewery
place) in Utica, New York, there was a waiting room where you could
wait for a guided tour through the beer factory.  There were quite
a few music boxes there -- played to death, but still going! --
including a Symphonion Eroica with leaded glass door.  (The Eroica
plays three discs simultaneously.)  During the tour, the docent would
say a little about each box and then turn the crank a few times and the
given box would play 5 to 10 seconds (the attention span of the average
tourist).  At the end of the spiel she played the Eroica and told
everyone it was one of only 10 made in the whole _world_ and it was
worth over a million dollars.

After both these experiences I copied information from the "Encyclopedia
of Automatic Musical Instruments" and even threw in some pages from
auction catalogs to educate the owners of the establishments with the
history and values of both pieces.  The owner in Vermont said he didn't
know where the docent got the information on the price, so he asked.
She told him that one of the tourist visitors told her.  So, she kept
repeating it even though it wasn't part of the script she was given.

The Utica Club owner wrote me back and told me that the "million dollar"
evaluation was given to him by the _architect_ they bought it from!

Whether or not either place has changed their script, I don't know.
I do know the boxes are still there and being played.

Nancy Fratti - Nancy Fratti Music Boxes
Canastota, New York, USA
http://www.nancyfrattimusicboxes.com/