The 2017 MBSI Annual Meeting is set for August 29 – September 2 in Whippany, NJ. It will be hosted by the East Coast Chapter of MBSI.
Download the 2017 MBSI Annual Meeting Registration packet.
WORKSHOP SPEAKERS
- SAM COTTONE – Auctioning Your Musical Boxes. What you should and should not expect from an auction company.
- MIKE FALCO – Applications of Tablet Controlled MIDI Music. Discussing tablet to MIDI to instrument without compromise to the instrument.
- NANCY FRATTI – Disbursing Your Collection. What things to consider when disbursing your prized mechanical musical instrument collection.
- KEN GORDON – The Eroica Discography. Newly created process of preparing the list of Symphonion Eroica discs for the 3-disc machine.
- JONATHAN HERZ – Making a New Cylinder Musical Box From Scratch.
- MATT JARO – Designing and Implementing a MIDI System for a Seeburg H Orchestrion.
- BARRY JOHNSON – The Process of making Stella and Mira Discs. Manufacturing a disc from concept to completion.
- COTTON MORLOCK – Rolmonica and Harmonica Repair. Discussing dis-assembly, cleaning, repair and re-assembly.
- MARTY PERSKY – Sublime Harmonie Music Box.
- ROB POLLACK – Marketing and membership for the Chapters.
- DWIGHT PORTER – 241/2-inch Komet Disc Musical Box.
- JERE RYDER – Guinness Collection: Past, Present & Future. Learn how Murtogh D. Guinness created the mechanism for his personal collection to become a major part of an existing museum, now enjoying its 10th year anniversary of the permanent exhibition having opened, and over 1 million visitors passing through its doors.
- BILL WINEBURGH – Exhibiting Your Collection. Discussing how to exhibit your personal collection in your home or at a local venue.
- RON YANCY – The Workings of a Talking Machine. Including spring repair and overall repair of the mechanism.
- BOB YORBURG – Carving Wood Façades for your Band Organ. A journey detailing the process of recreating band organ facades.
MORRIS MUSEUM RECEPTION
Included in your registration is the Thursday dinner reception and tours of the “Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Music and Automata” at the Morris Museum. You will enjoy a catered buffet dinner, tours of the museum and the Guinness Collection. Your registration also includes free admission to the Museum from Wednesday, Aug. 30th through Sunday. Sep. 3rd.
AWARDS LUNCHEON AND KEYNOTE SPEAKER
We welcome Dr. W. Anthony Sheppard who will deliver the keynote address at our annual awards luncheon on Friday. Professor Sheppard will regale us with the story of how he discovered in the Guinness Collection, the musical box heard by Puccini, from which he incorporated Chinese themes & melodies to create his opera, Madama Butterfly.
OPTIONAL TOURS
NORTH TOUR (Wednesday and Thursday) – Includes Boxed Lunch
Chase Collection – Arnold Chase has a fabulous music room with over 50 orchestrions and band organs. Included are a Hupfeld Helios II Style 33, a 121-key DeCap Jazz Organ, a Blessing “Castle Burg” Orchestrion, a Model 50 Fotoplayer, 105-key DeCap Robot Band, a 1908 68-key Limonaire Concert Organ, a 112-key Mortier Jazz Orchestra, an Imhof and Mulke Orchestrion with 3 moving scenes, a Popper Vindobona Orchestrion, a Philips Paganini with double roll changers, a Wurlitzer 165 Band Organ, a Wurlitzer 157 Band Organ, a Peerless Orchestrion and a 63-key Nederlands Boekorgel Centrum Organ. Lunch provided at Chase’s.
SOUTH TOUR (Wednesday and Thursday) – Includes Lunch at American Treasure Tour
American Treasure Tour / Neilson Collection. Don Neilson’s collection encompasses a myriad of different items. Included are many nickelodeons, orchestrions, band organs, store display animated figures, model airplanes, circus and carnival items, plus over 40 antique cars and trucks from 1905 thru the 1960’s. With over 100,000 sq. ft. there are thousands of items to see! MBSI Collection. The MBSI Collection is currently housed at Don Neilson’s incredibly large factory building. The collection contains over 200 pieces, including 79 cylinder musical boxes, 53 disc musical boxes, organettes, automata and more.
EAST TOUR (Wednesday and Thursday) – Includes Boxed Lunch
Singe Collection. Herb Singe’s 5,000 square foot museum treats you to selections from street organs, tabletop musical boxes, 3 automatic Regina changers, a Seeburg KT Special and possibly the world’s oldest Wurlitzer band organ. In addition, you can peruse one of the finest collections of antique automobiles, motorcycles and automobilia in the northeast, antique toys, motor scooters, miniature race cars and model airplane engines.
Boxed lunches will be provided to eat at Herb Singe’s.
The Edison National Historic Site is one of the first research and development labs. At one time it was filled with 10,000 employees from around the world. The first floor holds the machine shop and stock room, with artifacts from all over the world—tools and parts, plus turtle shells, elephant hide, and other oddities. On the second and third floors, you will find the precision machine shop, Edison’s private lab, the drafting room, the music recording studio, the photo lab, a gallery of phonographs (including the first one, where Edison famously recorded “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), and some of Edison’s later projects. Across from the lab building are separate labs for chemistry and metallurgy and the pattern shop. Behind the visitor center is the Black Maria, the austere rotating shed that served as the world’s first motion picture studio.