The End of The Museum of Synthesizer Technology

Here's another find I'm left wondering how the heck I never ran into until now. Title link takes you to a fascinating Sound on Sound article on Martin Newcomb and The Museum of Synthezier Technology. The craziest thing? No one came to it over time! He eventually ended it due to lack of interest and repair costs. He sold off most of the gear to Turnkey; the gear is now part of their vintage collection. Amazing story.

"The Museum of Synthesizer Technology succeeded in putting together what was, at the time, the world's largest collection of analogue synths, but Martin was dismayed to find that this did not guarantee public interest. So was it a failure? "Yes," he told me, "it failed. In retrospect, I liken it to St Paul's Cathedral. Everyone thinks it's great that St Paul's is there, but they assume that it's always going to be there and never bother to go and see it. The Museum was like that. All the people came along in the first couple of years and, after that, the only support came from America, Germany and, to a lesser degree, Japan. I tried to organise things like tours from college music departments, but the response was always, 'You're too far away,' or 'I'll make an effort at some point but not at the moment.'"

"Go to Turnkey and have a look at their collection — almost all of that came from the Museum."

Update via Tom in the comments: "And Turnkey got rid of their collection a while ago... " That's right. I forgot about that.