Jeff Vincent wrote in 110929 MMDigest:

> Years ago we purchased a Hicks barrel piano with automata from the
> Ryders in New Jersey but the twelve figures had been stripped away.
> We got it for the music that is wonderful, and the repair was easy,
> but what won't be so easy is to replace those figures.

Jeff,  Craig Smith sent me photos of the automata mechanism of your
Hicks barrel piano.  The mechanics for each moving figure resemble
very closely the drawings in a recent book by Herbert Juetteman (see
reference below) and it's likely the missing carved figures resembled
those in the color photos in the book, albeit with an English flavour!

Since the automata scenes atop barrel organs frequently portrayed
the elements of a well-known street ballad, you could design figures
to illustrate an English-language "Moritat" such as my favourite,
"With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm (Anne Boleyn)."

Just imagine King Henry, seated at the banquet table, surrounded by
his servants and courtiers -- his "pals and gals, a ghostly crew."
The headsman is brandishing his axe above joints of beef and loaves
of bread, and Anne Boleyn is about to launch her severed head like
a bowling ball into the soup tureen!  Stanley Holloway sings this
comic song from 1934 at

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTkDGpcWnmU&feature=related
 

Robbie Rhodes
Etiwanda, Calif.

Ref. Jütteman, Herbert: Figuren-Drehorgeln von Ignaz Bruder und seinen
Nachkommen (Figured Barrel Organs by Ignaz Bruder and his Descendents),
Waldkirch 2005, Waldkircher Orgelstiftung, ISBN: 3-7806-7240-5