Mellotronists

charel196 wrote:

> The story about the guy getting the tron from his neighbor 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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Greetings All,

Good topic, Charles !  I often wondered myself.
There's a formula somewhere that predicts the
mortality rate for manufactured products in time.
Useful years, decline of parts/svc. avail, wear-and-tear,
and finally , placed on the curb or local heap.
And those Trons which fell victim to natural  hazards.
Mike Pinder himself reported that he lost a MK-V
in a brush fire at his Malibu ranch years ago.

>From personal experience, I maintained a $2-Million
piece of computer-chip equipment at IBM for 10 years.
One day, a second-level mgr. came-along and said
"Pull the plug, scrap-it."  Was working perfectly , easily
within its own specs, but someone/something decided
that it outlived itself.  I had the sad duty of dismantling
it and heaving the bits into two huge dumpsters.

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

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

Thru the years, I've seen precious Mellotron bits
and pieces 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.
.....that sorta thing.  It would be nice to think that
there still are unfound "diamonds in the rough"
waiting to be rediscovered. But the mortality rate
of the older machines, plus lack of parts thru time
may have sealed their fate.

Let's keep this thread going,gang .

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

On Aug 18, 2004, at 5:17 PM, Jerry Korb wrote:

> Good topic, Charles !  I often wondered myself.
> There's a formula somewhere that predicts the
> mortality rate for manufactured products in time.
> Useful years, decline of parts/svc. avail, wear-and-tear,
> and finally , placed on the curb or local heap.
> And those Trons which fell victim to natural  hazards.
> Mike Pinder himself reported that he lost a MK-V
> in a brush fire at his Malibu ranch years ago.
>
> From personal experience, I maintained a $2-Million
> piece of computer-chip equipment at IBM for 10 years.
> One day, a second-level mgr. came-along and said
> "Pull the plug, scrap-it."  Was working perfectly , easily
> within its own specs, but someone/something decided
> that it outlived itself.  I had the sad duty of dismantling
> it and heaving the bits into two huge dumpsters.
>
> Ever hear the auto-ad :  " Nine out of ten Subarus
> mfg'd since 1985 are still on the road ?"
> What they DON'T tell you that they include the
> 0.2% of extant 1985 rustbuckets along with the 89.5%
> of year 2003 models in the equation.
> ......Marketing, hmmmm.
>
> With the thousands of 1953 Corvettes made, how many
> have survived to this day ? Prob. a small percentage.
> 55 Mark-I Trons were produced. Approx. 45 upgraded
> to MK-II specs,leaving 10 in orig. state. We know of
> three for sure. The other seven ?......The band "Jonesey"
> used a MK-I  on LP's "No Alternative" and "Collage" .
> Where's the Tron?  Even John Evan-Jones doesn't know.
>
> Thru the years, I've seen precious Mellotron bits
> and pieces 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.
> .....that sorta thing.  It would be nice to think that
> there still are unfound "diamonds in the rough"
> waiting to be rediscovered. But the mortality rate
> of the older machines, plus lack of parts thru time
> may have sealed their fate.
>
> Let's keep this thread going,gang .
>
> Cheers,  Jerry Korb (....no dumpster yet....)

My contribution (although sketchy):

There was a Canadian band in the early '70s that used a 400 (can't 
remember the name -- that's the sketchy part) who were travelling 
through the Rockies headed for Vancouver. Their equipment truck crashed 
and every went off a very high cliff into a river (might have been the 
Columbia near Revelstoke (get out your maps, non-Canadians). In any 
event, the 400 floated off down the river, never to be seen again. 
(Maybe someone else knows the missing/fuzzy bits of the story and can 
fill them in.)

According to JB, the very first mellotron (obviously one of those MkIs, 
Jerry) met an awful fate right in the mellotron factory. It had been 
crated up for shipment to the States and when it was being hoisted up 
on a block and tackle into the back of a lorry, something went wrong 
and it crashed down to the floor of the factory. If memory serves, the 
useable parts went into another unit. Hmmm... Maybe fate was trying to 
tell the Bradleys something. Thankfully, John hasn't learned what it is 
yet...

Rick