The Island of Misfit Toys - a magical museum

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As has been previously noted, I have a borderline-unhealthy predilection towards toy instruments. I scour thrift stores, search Ebay obsessively, and hit up Craigslist every day.

However, since my wife and I bought our first house, the pile of farthings available for vintage Casiotone purchases has dwindled to nothing.

Luckily, there is a man that I can live vicariously through. His name is Eric, he lives in Germany, and he has what I consider to be the coolest collection of vintage electronic noise-makers in the world. Not the most extensive, mind you, but undoubtedly the coolest. Sometimes, when I’m looking longingly up at the stars, I wonder it he’s looking up at the same stars (or rather, the blue sky where the stars are going to be in 8 hours). In a totally platonic, “hug-you-and-hit-you” sort of way.

Anyway, his site is called MiniOrgan.

(A quick aside: From what I can tell, he has friends and acquaintances that, on occasion, just give him vintage toy keyboards. Sigh)

Some of the objects of my affection (click through to hear audio samples):

The Dubreq Stylophone, a sexy little number that, aside from being a monophonic synth that you play with a metal stylus, also looks like it was designed in 2020 to look like it was made in 1950.

The Asahi Electronic Organ (1959 Version), a desktop unit complete with built-in spring reverb.

The Mego Muson Synthesizer, essentially a neaderthalic step-sequencer with pretty colors.

The Trimtone EV-5TS looks my Playskool PS-635. However, while mine has 3 different instrument settings that all sound horrid, the Trimtone has one that sounds awesome.

Thing that I love so much about toy instruments is not their rarity or weirdness (well, maybe the weirdness a little bit), but that they create sounds people aren’t familiar with. In the music business - especially our li’l worlds of production music and commercials - when so many people have the same virtual instruments and plug-ins, similar sounding basic acoustic instruments, and virtually the same four microphones, it’s just plain fun to stick some bizarre alien squelch in a song if for no other reason than to keep myself entertained.

If any of our readers share a similar passion, tell us about your favorite toy instrument. And then give it me. [ms]