The Register of Musical Boxes has been mentioned several times in MMD
recently. David Worral described it: "I must end with a plug for The
Register of Cylinder Musical Boxes maintained by MBSGB and a plea for
all owners of cylinder musical boxes to take the time to register them.
(NB: Owner details are _not_ NOT recorded.) Currently, The Register has
12,500 entries and is an invaluable tool for research into cylinder
musical box history"

It would indeed be a most valuable tool for researchers if only it were
available to them. It is my understanding that it is maintained by Mr. Arthur
Cunliffe and information is only available through him. Do correct me
if this is not the case. Mr. Cunliffe is an elderly man. He may not be
available indefinitely to answer queries, so what will happen to the
Register then? Most researchers, collectors etc are only too pleased to
make their results known freely to everyone. See, for example,
http://lucerna.exeter.ac.uk/ which is a register of thousands of items
of magic lantern related material. This is in itself a wonderful research
tool. Also, www.archive.org, which has masses of information on a huge
range of subjects. This site would be ideal for the Register of Cylinder
Boxes. All these data have been submitted willingly and freely by researchers
and collectors.

As a researcher myself, I often do not know what questions need to be
asked, and trawling through quantities of data often helps to formulate
questions, even if it does not necessarily answer them.

Would Mr. Cunliffe please consider adding his Register to a site such as
this, thus adding enormously to future research into musical box history
and doing us all a favour.

David Evans, Editor, Mechanical Music World.