I went to the COAA Rally in North Tonawanda, New York, on 7/25/03.
What a great time!  I'd never been to the Carousel Museum before,
nor been to such a big organ rally.

There were many impressive organs to be seen -- giant ones, little
ones, mid sized ones, restored, home-made -- each with their own unique
personality and appeal, and coming from all parts of the country.

One organ that stood out was the brand-new "Das Eichhoernchen" Dutch
street organ, owned by Kevin Sheehan and his wife; I believe they came
to the rally from Maine.  It is a large _hand-cranked_ organ mounted
on a wood wagon, all built last year to Kevin's specifications by
Fa. Pluer in Bussum, The Netherlands.  It's wonderfully painted with
a very cool and unique squirrel motif -- even the baton-wielding
band leader figurine on the front is a squirrel rather than a person!

The best part is the sound: very sweet but powerful, in my opinion the
best sounding organ there.  The range is amazing, having a 16' horn
inside.  Kevin made it sound great and made the cranking look easy, but
it's _not_ as easy as he makes it look: you have to crank at a steady
tempo, which takes some practice.  I took some pictures, which I'll
have to send sometime later.  (I need to finish the roll and get it
developed and scanned in).  If you get a chance to hear this organ
anywhere, it's well worth the drive.

Rick Inzero
near Rochester, NY

PS: Note that "Eichhornchen" is spelled with an umlaut over the "o".

 [ Right; the equivalent of o-umlaut is "oe" when 7-bit plain-text-only
 [ is required, as in MMDigest.  Eichhoernchen is the German name for
 [ the red squirrel (sciurus vulgaris) of Europe and Asia.  Visit the
 [ Firma Pluer web site at http://www.bandorgan.com/  -- Robbie