Mortier organ
The Mortier organ (101 tracks) can be admired at the Museum for Music Automatons since the fall of 2008 and has made the trip across the Atlantic twice and crossed the US two times. It was built by the Belgium company Mortier in Antwerpen around 1915 (Organ number 1010) for use as a dance hall organ in Belgium. It was sold from Belgium in the 1970's to a private collection in Ohio and then from there to another collection in California in 1978. The façade and the organ movement were completely restored in California and the music repertoire was expanded to some 3,000 melodies. The organ was transported in 2008 to the Museum in Seewen.
Mortier
Theofiel Mortier (1855-1944) originally owned a dance hall where Gavioli organs were playing. As of 1880, he started to sell the organs located in the dance hall. It was a success business and he gradually became an organ salesman and importer of Gavioli dance hall organs. He opened a shop to repair the supplied organs with Guillaume Bax serving as the master mechanic. Problems at the Gavioli company forced Mortier to no longer accept or execute contracts. Mortier subsequently began to build his own dance hall organs starting in 1898. The crew grew to some 80 people after the First World War producing some 20 dance organs a year. A total of some 600 dance hall organs and orchestrions were manufactured. They were widely sold to dance halls in Belgium and the southern Netherlands. The company existed until 1948.
