M400 - #1226.
I'm afraid ol' #1226 seems to have had a somewhat sordid history:
I bought it from a coworker in a music store in Seattle during our grunge heyday in the mid 90's. My coworker bought from a junky guitarist who sold it out from under his band, the keyboardist of which was an acquaintance of mine. The junky guitarist bought the Mellotron for $100 in a transaction conducted on the stairs of the music store on the way up to the keyboard department from a pair of lackeys from an unnamed studio somewhere outside Seattle.
One day a month or so after buying #1226, while tending my keyboard department , a rather distinguished Englishman came up and started asking about any recent Mellotron activity. He said that he was the studio manager and that his studio assistants sold the instrument without his permission. It also seems that at some point in its previous history, #1226 was declared destroyed in a studio fire for insurance purposes, and that the studio was supposedly owned by a rather famous former Mellotronist from an English band that realized that allowing the original King Crimson to open for them would be career suicide. Why this person was setting up a studio in rural Washington and why the insurance scam I sure don't know nor do I know of how to prove or disprove it.
But I do know I had to make peace with all kinds of folks for buying this instrument: my friend from the junkie's band who I had several conversations with about my new Mellotron before we realized it had been his and he didn't even know it was gone, the studio manager who seemed to be a man of some history and stature somewhere, but who acknowledged that it was perhaps a misunderstanding between himself and his assistants that allowed the sale, and who made several allusions to the providence of #1226 and told me that I had acquired something special and that I was a lucky man who couldn't be blamed for my part in this series of sordid transactions. All very "Maltese Falcon" like.
I had to replace the motor control board right off and a missing knob or two, plus I insisted on paying my keyboardist friend for his loss. The folks that seemed to have come out best on all this? I suppose the junky guitarist and my mercenary coworker and maybe the studio lackeys who got to split a $100 for cleaning out someone's studio. I think I need to shower now...I feel dirty.
Paul T. M400 #1226
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 11:44 AM
Subject: [Mellotronists] 541 is alive
I have M400 #541 abtained summer 2005. The machined lived in a recording studio in the corner for years before I was hired to record there and found it sitting quietly in a corner. Bought it for my studio. Needed work, so THE Professor of all things mellotronic restored the Aloha tron to better than original. Where I live (close to tv/radio tower) there is lots of RF coming thru heads, so machine has been lined with foil. Untill I move clear or this interference, the noise will be slightly present. See file folder above for sample of 541 singing with some low freek stuff under ...listen close you will hear it.
Acompanied by my real violin and piano.
Enjoy fellow tronheads,
and the best to you
Lee