Hello everyone,  My name is Jerry Gilbert and I am 31 years old and
live in a small village called Fulbourn, about 5 miles south of
Cambridge UK.  I am an unemployed bicycle repairer.  I have been
totally blind since the age of 5.

I do not know much about mechanical music at all -- well, not yet.
My interest is in small musical boxes, and my reason for joining
the list is to find out the history of such boxes.  So if anyone
can help I will be most grateful.

As you can tell from my request for information I am a complete novice
in this area and my interest really started a few weeks ago when my
partner Amelia mentioned that she had seen a beautiful music box on TV.

As it is her birthday in a few weeks time I decided that I would
look for a musical box of some sort as a present.  I spent some time
searching shops but really only came across the very cheap plastic
mass-produced types.  I finally came across a small jewelry box,
which I believe is made by a company called Reuge.  I am now saving
my pennies.

I use the Web all the time but had not thought of the Internet as being
a place where I would find information about mechanical music, and the
MMD Web page was the first site that I found after using AltaVista
search engine and just entering "musical boxes"

Well, you all know a little about me now, so I will close by thanking
you all in advance for the help that I am sure you will all give me.

Jerry Gilbert

 [ Welcome aboard, Jerry, and "Hi" to Amelia too.  I'm still marveling
 [ at how well the modern computer speaks to the blind, and I'm
 [ trying to imagine the sounds which your synth-talker creates when
 [ viewing a web site with lots of screaming adverts!  Anyhow, our
 [ music box experts will have suggestions for you, and I think the
 [ history surrounding the music box will be a nice discussion thread.
 [ Cherrio !  -- Robbie