mandoline box

A cylinder musical box with four or more teeth tuned to each note in the melody and embellishment sections (not in the bass section) or to the tones used in the tunes played so that by plucking each tooth in rapid succession the note is sustained and mimics the sound of a mandolin. The cylinder is readily identified by the obvious angled lines of pins that create the "trill" effect. Some later-period boxes were made with as few as three notes per tune, referred to as pseudo-mandoline.