Your dedicated Mills Novelty Co. staff decided it was their duty to go in search of wonderful new musical treasures. Shown here at London's National Gallery along with the famous British Bronze Lion is George Collar (top) and Bob Brown (right) joined by our European friends--John and Marijke Verbeeck.
We actually found several Mills Violano singles, a double, and other Mills products in London in addition to other rare instruments including a Hupfeld Phonolizst, a large orchestrion, and even a Wurlitzer six roll changer nickelodeon! Proving once again that many hidden musical treasures await today's collector if you take the time to find them!
Your tireless Mills Novelty management (R-L Mike Ames, Marilyn Ames, George Collar, Bob Brown) pause in the shadow of the Westminister Clock Big Ben---the actual name of the largest bell--not the clock. Finding previously unknown mechanical musical instruments does have its' good moments. We even looked in the London Bridge area just to be sure that none of the famous 1930's stash known as the "London Bridge Violanos" had been overlooked. After seeing many wonderful things, we decided it was time for a ROAD TRIP. Across the channel and on to people to meet and things to see.
Here we check out the top of the London Eye in search of bargains for our customers---but no music machines appeared obvious from this viewpoint. So we continued our tireless search of Europe for instruments for you! After all, somebody's gotta do it... Now don't you agree this is real dedication to bring our clients only the best!!!
Here's a great old photo we ran across of English children enjoying a street concert. We are unsure of the exact date of this photo nor the ID of the organ, but obviously everyone is very happy!
For years we have been amused by stories that certain people in America would like you to think they have exclusive leads to find exciting long forgotten musical instruments--it simply isn't so. Along the way to our next stop, a city of beauty, incredible views, and the 1880's equal to the Seattle Space Needle--- we stumbled onto something special!
Check out the mystery--- a find that everyone seems to be looking for---a very large self contained custom case concert orchestrion! It's tucked neatly away in a forgotten corner of a forgotten building. This beauty is just waiting to be "liberated" to make concerts for future generations (at the moment we were told it doesn't play). We won't tell other music merchants where it's located, they can go find it for themselves. But you can clearly see it exists.... to our customers we say "go get 'em tiger". We gave you a hint and a general location! This may be a real prize for the collector that can bargain it into a new home. Its present building is in very poor condition and has the appearances of a financial shortfall, like most of us these days. All adding up to a possible trade of cash for the potential pearl, and repairs to the leaking roof---everyone wins!
As our travel continued, we located for sale DOZENS of wonderful music boxes, many uprights with matching disk storage units, and enjoyed private visits at several very fine collections. We located for sale a great sounding BURSENS roll playing organ with lots of music, a made for the Dutch market 72 Key Mortier with a nice facade, 120 original books of music, and a fabulous sound! We also found a Wm. Bruder Organ playing on very large paper rolls (many come with it.) It once saw service in Canada, is complete with a band master; and can be purchased very reasonably. We found a unique Phillips orchestrion with four lamps just recently removed from its original location, with a top curved glass xylophone, nice mahogony carved case, and much more! Check out our FOR SALE section to see these and more newly discovered treasures that await our customers. We will be happy (at no charge) to help a new buyer with the details of shipping as we have experience in this area.
We hope you enjoyed our spring tour of Europe. We invite you to give us a call at 715-424-5183 if you have interest in any of the items we have discovered. Have a wonderful summer....MNC