BLOG MAY 2021

in Blog THEMUSICBOXMAN

Dear Readers,

After a long delay because of the Corona time, themusicboxman now has
the necessary 2 vaccination shots and hopes that normal life can be
restarted, also for you.
The number of visitors to our web site has fallen in this time, may be
because of the Corona troubles, people have other things to worry about,
or may be also because the older generation that still had memories of
music boxes, is diminishing.
Last year we still had approx. 10.000 visitors out of 98 countries. The
top 4 are all English speaking countries, US, UK, Canada and Australia
in that order.
On the other hand we see more interest coming from non-English countries
as e.g. China. But we also had visitors from countries as Kosovo,
Ukraine, Nepal, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Brazil, Iran, Qatar, Lesotho and
Nigeria to name a few. To all those newcomers we say thank you and hope our
virtual museum is of interest to you.

Thanks to another collector/seller trying to match Reuge cylinder numbers
to tunes, we can extend our lists of Reuge numbers by approx. 30 tunes and
that will be reflected in our Tunes pages shortly.

We have over the past few months extended our sub-collections to make it
easier to access with the following titles:
-Weather Houses
-Pigs
-Wine Glasses Musical
-Solar Powered Music Boxes
New solar powered music boxes are coming to the market, but that is outside
the scope of this Collection; older solar powered music boxes are hard to get.

And last but not least. We have SECURE status for our web site (https) since
last year so that you can access the web site without worries.

Our best regards to you,

Themusicboxman

BLOG SEPTEMBER 2019

in Blog THEMUSICBOXMAN

Greetings to all our readers from all over the world.

We have visitors to our site of well over 100 countries in all

continents, including peaceful and war torn countries. We

really appreciate your attention and thank you for your interest.

The composition of our sub-collections is ever changing.

If we feel that there are enough items to warrant a sub-collection

we will do so, as our visitors may be finding items of interest easier

that way. Preferably we like to have a minimum of 5 music boxes/

musical toys per sub-collection, but sometimes go as low as 3, the

absolute minimum, if we feel that it makes it easier to find a subject.

We have recently added the following (new) sub-collections:

Otagiri Birds 206 (16x). This has come together from the many birds
sub collections we have. Otagiri, long gone since the eighties, is still
admired for the outstanding quality of the music boxes, exclusively
from Japan (that is till the ill-fated takeover by Enesco ) and is still
very collectable.

Hippopotamuses 207 (3x). Animals are always popular and the more

specific we can be, the better for you.

Elvis Presley Musicals (5x). Still a very popular figure.

Weather Homes Musical (6x). After a new purchase it turned out that

there were more weather homes tucked in sub-collections as Swiss

Chalets and Wooden Musicals. Now all in one place.

Earlier we made new sub-collections for Door Chimes 203 (3x),

Gorham Unieboek Gnomes (4x), from The Netherlands and

Fragrance Related Musicals (8x).

Also, we took out all the Sold items from our For Sale collections. The

original idea to keep them in, was to give you an idea what was selling. But

there were too many now and it made checking out the For Sale items too

complicated.. What you now see in For Sale Collections is indeed for sale.

The form of the Collection therefore is always a work in progress.

Best wishes to all,

Themusicboxman

BLOG February/March 2019

in Blog THEMUSICBOXMAN, Uncategorized

Dear Readers,

Up till now it was possible to see in Music Boxes For Sale and Musical Toys For Sale all items listed over time, including the Sold items. The idea was that it gave readers looking for an item to buy an idea what was out there and what had been acquired by others.

But slowly the system becomes unworkable by the sheer amount of items sold and in popular categories as Animals Other (than Birds/Bird Cages) it is by now difficult to see what is still available and what has been sold, leading to errors.

Therefore over the next few days I will move the sold (and lost) items out of the Sale collections and maintain them as a database for myself, but will not publish them. That will unclutter the For Sale line-up and hopefully makes it easier for readers, looking for an item or items of interest, to check the listings.

As always we maintain a low price level for all items for sale, compared to prices you may find an eBay or Etsy. In general prices for boxes that have there labels (even if partly) are higher than for unlabelled boxes, as they will be original and give you a better idea of origin, often tunes and quality. Boxes identified as Otagiri, Schmid, Mann, Gorham, Lefton, Berman & Anderson, ANRI will always fetch a small premium because of their much better than average quality, while Price, Anart, Artmark and others generally are of good quality also. We only ship via USPO and payment is via PayPal only.

As we keep our prices low we charge a quite small packaging charge to cover cardboard box and material to protect the item(s) during shipping. The final price is selling price of the item + shipping charges + packaging cost. To get a quote for an all-inclusive price, please email your ZIP code (or whatever it is named in Canada) together with the items you are interested in. Because of shipping charges we mainly ship to continental U.S.A. and Canada, Only if you are interested in 5/6 items or more, would it be worthwhile to check all- in prices to other countries. For Canada and other countries we need to fill out import forms.

Themusicboxman hopes that if you are looking for an item you will include are For Sale listings. Thank you.

On another subject, recently we have seen bubbles of interest out of Russia and Brazil. We take it that our site has been mentioned in some way, may be by clubs interested in music boxes. Welcome!

To all, we appreciate your interest in our virtual museum, that as far as we know, is rather unique in the world, because of the many ways it shows music boxes were commercially sold in the period we cover, 1945 to 1990.

With our best regards,

Themusicboxman

BLOG OCTOBER 2018

in Blog THEMUSICBOXMAN, Uncategorized

Themusicboxman has to apologize to you for a prolonged absence in this space, due to health reasons, but is fully back in business again, thank you.

First I would like to draw your attention to the music boxes and musical toys we have for sale, over 400 all together of which over 60 are toys. These are double boxes and toys that are in My Collection and are offered for sale at really modest prices. Despite the above health reasons I have been able to ship music boxes over the last few months. The quality of the boxes and toys are described in the site and I try to offer only good or excellent items. Before shipping I check whether the quality is as described and the music working. Please check it out yourself. Because of shipping charges the delivery is effectively limited to the U.S.A. and Canada.

The largest market for music boxes in quantity in the US was in the eighties. That is on average over 30 years ago. It is my feeling, I cannot corroborate it with figures, that the supply from that period is drying up a bit. Some boxes that were sold in quantity are still turning up, as for instance offered for sale on Etsy and eBay, but it is getting more difficult to find items that were of less interest in that period. It has not had a great effect on prices yet, but for some quality boxes as by Otagiri, Jozef or Schmid and some series as Beatrix Potter there is an upward tendency. As you know from the nineties the market switched to China and that is outside the interest for this Collection.

Finally, we still see visitors to our website from a lot of different countries, over a 100 countries in a year, even from war torn countries as Iraq. Also we see from time to time a bubble of interest in some countries, as, I assume, there has been a publication about the site one way or the other; this happened over the last few months with Russia, France and Brazil, at different times. A great welcome to all and thank you for your interest.

THEMUSICBOXMAN