Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

 

charel196 wrote:

The story about the guy getting the tron from hisneighbor made me
wonder how many units have been lost in hurricanes(Charley?)
tornadoes,fires,or floods that could account for all the missing
manufactured product...(not counting Rick Wakeman's bonfire)

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GreetingsAll,

Goodtopic, Charles !  I often wondered myself.
There'sa formula somewhere that predicts the
mortalityrate for manufactured products in time.
Usefulyears, decline of parts/svc. avail, wear-and-tear,
andfinally , placed on the curb or local heap.
Andthose Trons which fell victim to natural  hazards.
MikePinder himself reported that he lost a MK-V
ina brush fire at his Malibu ranch years ago.

Frompersonal experience, I maintained a $2-Million
pieceof computer-chip equipment at IBM for 10 years.
Oneday, a second-level mgr. came-along and said
"Pullthe plug, scrap-it."  Was working perfectly , easily
withinits own specs, but someone/something decided
thatit outlived itself.  I had the sad duty of dismantling
itand heaving the bits into two huge dumpsters.

Everhear the auto-ad :  " Nine out of ten Subarus
mfg'dsince 1985 are still on the road ?"
Whatthey DON'T tell you that they include the
0.2%of extant 1985 rustbuckets along with the 89.5%
ofyear 2003 models in the equation.
......Marketing,hmmmm.

Withthe thousands of 1953 Corvettes made, how many
havesurvived to this day ? Prob. a small percentage.
55Mark-I Trons were produced. Approx. 45 upgraded
toMK-II specs,leaving 10 in orig. state. We know of
threefor sure. The other seven ?......The band "Jonesey"
useda MK-I  on LP's "No Alternative" and "Collage" .
Where'sthe Tron?  Even John Evan-Jones doesn't know.

Thruthe years, I've seen precious Mellotron bits
andpieces wander-by. The frame of MK-II/163
(RIP)is in the UK.  Misc. parts of a disassembled
MK-V (RIP) found in garage-sale in CT two years ago.
.....thatsorta thing.  It would be nice to think that
therestill are unfound "diamonds in the rough"
waitingto be rediscovered. But the mortality rate
ofthe older machines, plus lack of parts thru time
mayhave sealed their fate.

Let'skeep this thread going,gang .

Cheers, Jerry Korb (....no dumpster yet....)