MOMSR analog museum ends non-profit and goes private

MartinT

New member
As some of you may know, we decided to dissolve the non-profit Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording on December 31, 2017.

The magnetic recording collection was begun in 1998. We’ve never had an employee and all the preservation has been completed within my spare time with my wife Chris’ support. She sometimes wishes I’d only collected mics.

Our great MOMSR Board also went above and beyond for the collection for five full years!

After 5 years, the Board and I believed we gave the Museum a good shot. There were many very close opportunities (view support letters from a grant app). Maybe if they had clustered together and folks who promised help and donations had followed through, it would have been different. The bottom line is we determined that folks are more supportive of artist memorabilia collections then recording tech. Even Austin’s Bullock Museum who provided mentoring to our museum went with an Austin City Limits display. It makes sense and cents! Even Teac Japan became interested in partnering with us, but it was contingent on a public facility.

I deeply appreciate all the supporters in this group that provided encouragement and donations.

You will see more detail in the story at this link. However basically we took our original collection back private. There were several non-profit donations, like the original Magnecord from Dave Boyer’s and other magnetic recording legacy items. My wife and I purchased those items from the non-profit, prior to the dissolution. They will be preserved in the studio/museum space and continue on the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording web site.

We will complete pending restorations, document them for our streaming services and then determine what vintage recording devices will stay and what will go. Most likely we will end up with 20% of the current collection and the rest will be liquidated. The upside is that I will regain space in our recording studio again.

After a March 2018 health scare, I am also winding down my media business with some clients that have been with us for over 25 years.

Our recording company, Phantom Productions, Inc. is 54 this month. It’s been a wonderful ride with many fascinating side excursions.

We are in the process of consolidating 3 web sites and it will take some time. So as you look through our pages, you may find you're on a different domain. We are working to link these as best as we can while the construction is in the works. This will be the primary web link.

We gave many private tours over the years. Once a media crew came to do a 20 minute video shoot and ended spending four hours touring. Engineers have stayed even longer. Public school and university classes toured.

So good intentions, lots of learning (which will continue as the web site is reorganized) and a wake up call about museums.

Cheers!
Martin
Martin Theophilus
MOMSR/Reel2ReelTexas/Phantom
 
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