Mark Larin Piano Tuning and Servicing

07/30/2026

Well, there’s just one more day left in our exhibition of The RARE Event (Roving Antiques and Relics Exhibition.)

We’ve had a great experience, having chatted with hundreds of folk, taught them things and learned things from them as well!

Our thanks go out to the good people at the Cornwall Square for having provided us the opportunity to bring you this unique science and tech museum kind of exhibit!

We’ve stepped out in faith, not knowing how this venture would evolve and that, itself, is part of the fun in the journey.

We’re in talks about bringing it to Brockville this fall. We’ll let you know when we’ve confirmed our next adventure.

The sheer number of people who have expressed how in-awe they’ve been at the exhibit is remarkable and humbling. This affirms our efforts and assures us that we’re doing something of great value for the community.

Stop by to see us for our last day tomorrow, Friday, from 11 - 5pm at the top of the escalators in the Cornwall Square. We can’t say where or when our next local exhibition will be as we explore the options before us so you might want to catch a glimpse of it while it’s here.

This has been a very satisfying experience and I want to thank everyone who stopped in and shared their experiences with us, both in the moment and in their recollections of how the items were remembered by them.

All the best to you!

07/22/2026

We’re on target to have had about 1,000 visitors to the RARE Event since we started in May!

We have just six days left for our Cornwall Square July event (Thursdays through Sundays, 11 - 5, until end of July.)

The comments that people leave continue to be heartwarming and affirming that we’re providing something of great emotional value to folks.

A 95 year old man spoke to me about how moved he was to have, once again, seen things that he knew as a child and young adult. His eyes were misty while he was sharing, as were mine. I said that ‘this is our gift to you.’ (A note of thankfulness for what he has contributed to the world in his time.)

Another man said that he had visited the Edison museum in the US and found this one to be more to his liking.

It is uplifting to watch the kids draw their ‘comments’ and experiences on the Bristol board that sits beside the Comments books.

A man eagerly brought a group of people in to experience the event, following his visit the day beforehand. He told them they ‘had to see this.’ I gave them a group tour and he later told me that he was so happy for them, based on their reactions to what they saw.

I’ll end here but you get the gist of it.

See you at the Cornwall Square this week or on the Thursday/Friday of next week as we wrap up the July event at the mall.

07/18/2026

The Roving Antiques and Relics Exhibition (RARE) Event.

We’re half way through our July event at the Cornwall Square and I’m loving the interactions with so many people about their experiences with the familiar antiques and relics as well as their reactions to seeing things they didn’t know about, back in their day.

We’ve had about three hundred folks drop in so far and that keeps it fun!

I was thinking about some of the things that makes this event different than, say, a visit to a science and tech museum.

This one ‘tells the stories’ of six inventors as they build on one another’s ideas, push each other onto greater creations and, at the same time, change our lives tremendously! The stories of their interactions gives the background to each new discovery and that, I think, makes a huge difference.

You’ll learn of Alexander Graham Bell ‘borrowing’ Edison’s ideas and improving upon them. Later, Edison contributes to Bell’s discovery and that feature is used by the Bell company for the next hundred years. You’ll learn about how Emile Berliner improved upon Edison’s recording cylinders, helped to spawn his friend’s company, the Victor Company (RCA), and was then bested by Edison’s next revelation in recorded music. Edison and his friend, Albert Dick, changed the world in putting printing/copying into the common person’s hands and igniting changes so many fields because of this. You’ll see the actual machines that each of these made in the evolution of ideas.

The interplay between these, and a few other, characters is dynamic and life-changing for the rest of the world.

There is a lot more to say and to see though I thought you might like to know about a few of them.

We’re continuing with the plan of having folks take the tour first and then later making a donation of your choosing.

The RARE Event continues to be open at the Cornwall Square, near the top of the escalator, from Thursdays through Sundays from 11 to 5:00.

No one else in eastern Ontario is providing such a traveling museum. Treat yourself while it’s here in town.

Cheers.
Mark

07/13/2026

“I’ve learned more here than I did from my visit to the Smithsonian in D.C.”

That was one of the many written comments left by a visitor to the RARE Event this week that I thought you might like to know. “Amazing” is a word that is common in many comments as well.

The move to learn about the best fit for admission to the event involved changing to a ‘take the tour, THEN leave a donation’ has been a very good fit for visitors. It saw us going from a few dozen visitors in the first week to a few hundred visitors in the second week!

July is flying past us so treat yourself with a visit while we’re here at Cornwall Square for the rest of July, Thursdays through Sundays from 11 - 5:00.

You can take the self-guided tour, given that each item has a written description and, where background information is helpful, a single-sheet page is there for you to read.

If you would like to take the guided tour, plan on a bit more than an hour and everything will be described to you, with lots of opportunity for chit chat about the memories that it brings out for you.

Cheers!

Mark

07/09/2026

We did something different today. Because many people don’t yet know about the experience they’re asked to pay for before entering The RARE Event, we decided to offer folks the entire tour and to request a donation on the way out.

This allows folks to experience the event and to then match their contributions with how much they enjoyed the event.
We saw a lot of people having fun and being awed by what they were seeing.
The guided tours were rich with interactions that saw stories being shared both ways.

This model will be in place in the next few days as well, given the positive responses.

It is a rare event for a science and technology museum display to be featured in a mall setting so there was no shortage of surprised looks on people’s faces today.

By the way, we are now up to about 250 historic items, including 13 of Thomas Edison’s creations.

The location is upstairs, at the top of the escalators, in the Cornwall Square. We’ll be there from 11-5 on Thursdays through Sundays throughout July.
Treat yourself to a novel Cornwall experience!

07/02/2026

Well today is the first day of The RARE Event at the Cornwall Square!
We counted all of the artifacts and realized that we underestimated the number of historic items. We listed the count as 150. The actual number is 245!
We filled a large U-Haul truck to the max and things are now neatly displayed in a large, 2500 square foot, store with excellent lighting and signage at each item.
Treat yourself and someone else to a unique event!

06/28/2026

It’s just four days until one of Cornwall’s rarest events kicks off at the Cornwall Square - the RARE EVENT (Roving Antiques and Relics Exhibition)!

You can be assured that you will see things that you’ve never seen before.

Nothing is for sale. Everything is set up for the experience of viewing a wide range of historic items that tell the story of how we got to where we are today.

The reviews from the debut of this event at the Cornwall Public Library were very encouraging. Since then, more than 30 items have been added.

We saw folks from teens to seniors really enjoying the exhibit so that affirmed that there’s something for most everyone here.

It starts this Thursday. See you there!

06/26/2026

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1427644612717548&id=100064160676802

💡𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑.𝐀.𝐑.𝐄. 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟓𝟎 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰, 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟏𝟐 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬!
👉𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮!

📍𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥, 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝟏𝟏𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝟓𝐩𝐦. 𝐀𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 $𝟏𝟎

06/25/2026

Thomas Edison

It only took 2 million years until one human being discovered how to record and play back the sounds that we make - Thomas Edison. If that wasn’t enough to make his parents (Samuel and Nancy Edison) proud, their son would eventually log more than 1,000 patents for new inventions!

In his 84 year long lifetime, he would; bring electric lighting to industries (with Cornwall being the first place in Canada to have this marvel), quadruple the telegraph’s ability, spawn the music recording industry, revolutionize business practices with dictation devices and copying technology, improve battery technology, develop an X-ray machine, save countless lives of miners, and help to start the movie industry.

The next 2 million years will have been greatly propelled forward because of the talents of Samuel and Nancy’s son, Thomas.

At the RARE Event, you will see a dozen of his inventions as well as some of the great inventions that were spawned by his creations and by those of his peers over the next 150 years.

150 year period, within the context of 2 million years, is a drop-in-the-bucket but, ‘Oh. What a drop!’

06/22/2026

Beautiful work done by Kelly Signs in co-creating signs with me!