#245. This has to be the most photographed Mellotron in the world. It's the one that was used for all of the Keyboard Magazine shots, the Vintage Synths book, Electronic Musician, the InVision CD ROM, the Roland CD and many small adverts around the states. This was my first 'tron. Luckily, it didn't work when I bought it, and the search for parts led to this madness. It once belonged to a fellow in Olympia Washington named Fon Morcus. It was quite a journey trying to get this thing going in 1989, nobody knew where to get parts and nobody cared. All I could think of was the 1974 Strawbs Hero and Heroine tour that I had seen (two 400's) and the possibility that I could hear that sound again in my own home. The initial word on the street at the time was that both Mellotron Digital and the "English Mellotron company" had both stopped doing business 3 years earlier. Then I thought-" I wonder what happened to the master tapes?".
Wondering can be a dangerous business!