Day 54: My Much Missed Muson

I have been going through cards and letters in the past week or so. If you have ever sent me a letter or given me a card, there's a good chance I still have it. Or at least I did until last week. I am keeping any cards with letters written in them, handmade or drawn ones, or sentimental ones, eg, those from people no longer with us, but I am enjoying looking though them all before I throw the majority into the recycle bin.

There are a lot of them:

That was just a small selection; I should have piled up the whole lot!

I will show some of the more interesting cards later. But this post is about the box that some of the cards had been stored in, for many years:

 You can play a tune or make the strangest sounds in the galaxy!

 The story behind this: at the end of summer 1979, Magazine played three nights at the Whisky, and I was hanging out with the band the second day when someone came to interview them. Whoever it was described the MUSON, which you could purchase for around $25 at Toys R Us, and everyone was intrigued. The journo came to the Whisky that night with one each for Dave, Barry and John. And the next week I ran down to Toys R Us. Mary Rat got one too, and I think Jill Jordan might have. I remember carrying mine around to shows at the Hong Kong and King's Palace. It ran on batteries, so you could play it anywhere!

It even had a drum machine! Technically it was more a sequencer than a synthesizer; you could not play much of a tune on only ten keys - which were not polyphonic (meaning you could not play more than one note at a time) and everything had to be in the key of C major (no black keys) - but the sequencer worked brilliantly and the sounds were ... well, out of this world!

 So why am I not showing you the real thing? Well, about a month after I got the Muson I went to England for several months and I took it with me, without the box to save space in my suitcase.
 

Thinking I could buy another one when I returned to the States, I gave my Muson to my friend Simon in London. We lost touch for many years but even though we found each other via Facebook a few years ago, I have not found out if he still has the Muson and if it still works. I somehow doubt it!

As you must have deduced, there was not a Muson to be found at Toys R Us or anywhere once 1980 rolled around. I have never seen one on eBay either, and I have been using eBay since the mid 90s when they had all those weird salamander URLs and no photos. I have only seen a couple mentions of it on web pages. But if anyone knows of one that exists, do please let me know!