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Originally Posted by Bill
As some of you know, my wife and I travel across the country with our TM (Maine to southern AZ and back) twice a year. We take our time, and like to see interesting stuff. I haven't written much about the sights we've seen, but I'm sitting here watching American Pickers and thought I might do so.
On this trip, one stop was the De Bence Antique Musical Instrument Museum in Franklin, PA. They have a large collections (3 floors!) of the most amazing automatic musical instruments I've ever seen. Automatic musical instruments, of course, are instruments that play themselves. They are usually air-powered, with air supplied by a built-in blower or by foot-pumped bellows. A player piano is a common example - but have you ever seen a self-playing violin? Or an entire orchestra in a big wooden cabinet called an Orchestrion? Of course there are also spring-wound instruments, like music boxes. This town is a few miles north of I-80 - definitely worth a trip.
Bill
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There is another large collection of these self-playing instruments and orchestrons at the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, CA. Sylmar is a suburb of Los Angeles. The instrument collection is accompanied by a VERY large collection of perfectly restored classic cars. Deusenbergs and that sort of thing. There is also one classic steam engine and passenger train to tour.
Tom