Dear MMDs, and Victoria Lindsay,  Victoria Lindsay asked who is
MAPSA, maker of small music boxes.

The very good book by Jean-Claude Piguet (1996), "Les faiseurs de
musique, histoire de la boite a musique a Sainte-Croix", in French
(we do hope that an English edition will perhaps appear in 2003),
explains in three pages what is MAPSA.

To sum it up, it is a small company established in 1953 in Sainte-Croix
by Charles Monti (M), Remy Aubry (A) and Frederic Paillard (P).  SA
stands for Societe Anonyme (= Ltd.).  The company and factory,
specialized in small movements (about 1000 different tunes available)
was later transferred to Yverdon.

I have called the famous musical box specialist Etienne Blyelle,
in Geneva, who confirms that MAPSA does exist yet in Yverdon.  He added
that it is MAPSA which produced the amusing Fisher Price toy looking
like a small pick-up turntable, with colored plastic discs with
protruding pins which played on a small MAPSA musical box movement
hidden in the sound box.  I have one of these, and it plays quite well.

I hope this gives you some indications,

With best regards,
Philippe Rouille  (Paris, France)
http://www.musicamecanica.org/