MECHANICAL MUSIC
Journal of the Musical Box Society International Devoted to All Automatic Musical Instruments
Volume 67, No. 5 September/October 2021
PURCHASE • SALES • CONSIGNMENT
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For over forty years we’ve placed fine antiques in collections around the world. Our reputation has been built upon appreciative buyers and satisfied sellers. Pictured are a few of the musical antiques in our current and recent inventories.
496 First Street, California 93463 • Ron & Julie Palladino Open Seven Days a Week 10-6 • 805-452-5700 www.renantiques.com
PURCHASE • SALES • CONSIGNMENT Visit the charming Danish Village of Solvang, half an hour above Santa Barbara in the beautiful Central Coast Wine Country
Editor/Publisher
Russell Kasselman (253) 228-1634 editor@mbsi.org
MBSI Editorial Office:
Iron Dog Media 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449 editor@mbsi.org
MECHANICAL MUSIC
Journal of the Musical Box Society International
Devoted to All Automatic Musical Instruments
Volume 67, No. 5 September/October 2021
MBSI NEWS
5 President’s Message 7 Editor’s Notes 8 Outreach Corner
53 In Memoriam
Publications Chair
Bob Caletti
All manuscripts will be subject to editorial review. Articles submitted for publication may be edited or rejected at the discretion of the Publications Committee and the Editorial Staff. The article will not be published with significant changes without the author’s approval. All articles are considered to be the author’s personal opinion. The author may be asked to substantiate his/her statements.
Mechanical Music (ISSN 1045-795X) is published by the Musical Box Society International, 130 Coral Court, Pismo Beach, CA 93449 six times per year. A Direc.tory of Members, Museums and Dealers is published biennially. Domestic subscription rate, $60. Periodicals postage paid at San Luis Obispo, CA and additional mailing offices.
Copyright 2021. The Musical Box Society Inter.national, all rights reserved. Mechanical Music cannot be copied, reproduced or transmitted in whole or in part in any form whatsoever without written consent of the Editor and the Executive Committee.
MEMBERS: SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO: MBSI, PO Box 10196, Springfield, MO 65808-0196 Or, make corrections on the website at www.mbsi.org.
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Features
11 Nickel Notes by Matt Jaro
24 A Family Affair
31 A Tip on Repairing a Tuning Lead
33 An Italian Organ Grind.er’s Life
41 The SEGA Grand Pianist
47 A Fortunate Find
52 Interesting Tidbits
MBSI has replanted 146 trees so far as part of the Print ReLeaf program.
On the Cover
Matt Jaro took this detailed shot of a Hupfeld Excelsior Pan Orchester case while on a tour of the Nether.cutt Collection’s music room. Read more about the entire collection in Nickel Notes on Page 11.
M
echanical music is a fascinating hobby! It appeals to the artist, historian, craftsman, and
musician all at the same time. Play an automatic
musical instrument in a room full of people and all else
will stop as the machine enraptures the audience with the
sparkling melodies of yesteryear!
Mechanical music instruments are any sort of auto.
matically-played machine that produces melodic sound
including discs and cylinder music boxes that pluck a steel
comb; orchestrions and organs that engage many instru.
ments at once using vacuum and air pressure; player and
reproducing pianos that use variable vacuum to strike piano
wires; phonographs; and self-playing stringed, wind, and
percussion instruments of any kind.
The Musical Box Society International, chartered by the
New York State Board of Regents, is a nonprofit society
dedicated to the enjoyment, study, and preservation of
automatic musical instruments. Founded in 1949, it now
has members around the world, and supports various educational projects.
Regional chapters and an Annual Meeting held each year in different cities within the United States enable members to visit collections, exchange ideas, and attend educational workshops. Members receive six issues of the journal, Mechanical Music, which also contains advertising space for members who wish to buy, sell, and restore mechanical musical instruments and related items. Members also receive the biennial MBSI Directory of Members, Muse.ums, and Dealers.
The only requirements for membership are an interest in automatic music machines and the desire to share infor.mation about them. And you’ll take pride in knowing you are contributing to the preservation of these marvelous examples of bygone craftsmanship.
More Information online at www.MBSI.org, or
Call: (417) 886-8839, or
Email: jbeeman.mbsi@att.net
Copy this page, and give it to a potential new member. Spread the word about MBSI.
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By Tom Kuehn
MBSI President
As my term of office comes to an end, I’d like to say that it has been a privilege and an honor to serve as your president. Two years ago, at the conclusion of the business meeting in Rockville, MD, when I was elected to serve as the 37th president of MBSI, I said I would do my best to serve you. I have tried to live up to that promise.
In the course of these turbulent two years, the main disruption, caused by a global pandemic, was something no one could have seen coming. Our soci.ety, however, continued to function well even at a reduced activity level.
Chapter meetings, among our most popular events, were put on hold for the most part, but a few enterprising chapters found ways to conduct well-attended virtual meetings. One lesson learned from that experience is that virtual meetings can remain a viable option to connect those who might be unable to attend future meet.ings in person. In my opinion, face to face interactions will always be pref.erable since one never knows what topics of conversation and nuggets of information will be shared between individuals cruising the buffet table or examining a mechanical music machine at a member’s home.
In fact, I may have never completed the band organ replica I began 30 years ago if not for the tips, advice and assistance graciously provided by members of the Snowbelt Chapter. That said, however, I believe we should not shy away from using technological advancements like virtual meetings to continue to share our wonderful hobby with as many people as we can. Distance and disease don’t exist in the virtual world, which means even those who live far away or are recuperating from illness or injury can still enjoy fellowship with other members and experience the wonderful music and machines we all love.
Our publication, Mechanical Music, continues to be a high-quality font of information thanks to everyone who contributes articles, the extensive list of those who review each issue before it goes to press and our very capable editor, Russell Kasselman. Don’t hesitate to contact him if you have something interesting to share with the rest of us. Also don’t forget that past issues and articles are available on our website should you wish to search for a specific topic.
Several forms, our website and copies of Mechanical Music articles are now available in languages besides English. This should assist those who are not native English speakers and attract new members from around the world to our international organization.
Our society would not function without the dedication of a large number of members who volunteer their time and talents for chapter meetings, annual meetings, society committees and leadership positions. Approximately 60 individuals are listed near the back of each issue of Mechanical Music, but I know the total number of volunteers who make our society great is much larger than that.
I want to thank each of you for continuing to support our society. We have endured difficult times together and I think everyone looks forward to resuming more normal activities. I encourage you to continue to share your knowledge and enthusiasm with those who may not be familiar with our hobby.
Keep the music flowing!
Mail any MBSI Editorial / Advertising materials to 130 Coral Court, Pismo Beach, CA 93449 Emails with attachments can be sent to editor@mbsi.org
MBSI MEMBERSHIP DRIVE EACH ONE/REACH ONE NEW MEMBER
MBSI is always interested in increasing its membership and is pleased to offer new members a $15 discount off their ÿrst year’s membership. You are considered a new member if you have not been a member in the past three years. This discount is also available on our website, www.mbsi.org.
Current MBSI members who sponsor a new member will receive a $5 discount off their next year’s MBSI membership renewal for each sponsorship. Attach a copy of the discount voucher below to a copy of the membership application form on Page 4 of this issue of Mechanical Music. Place your name as “sponsor” on the application form.
Please make copies of these forms as needed and send the completed forms with checks to the MBSI administrator at the address listed below.
been members of MBSI or those who have not been members for three years prior to submission of this certiÿcate.
Gift Membership Name
Address, City, State, ZIP Phone Email Sponsor
SPECIAL OFFER: Purchase one or more ÿrst-year MBSI gift memberships at $45 each U.S., $55 Canadian, or $60 other Interna.tional and you will receive $5 off your next year’s MBSI membership renewal for each “New Member” gift.
Please mail this form together with your check made payable to “MBSI” to the MBSI Administrator at the address listed above. Memberships are $45 for U.S. residents, $55 for Canadian residents, and $60 for other International residents.
Editor’s Notes
By Russell Kasselman
MBSI Editor/Publisher
It’s rare when I get a chance to share a bit of a timely news story in this space so I’m excited to get to it, but,
before I do, I want to say a huge thank you to all the wonderful writers who contributed to making this another fantastic issue. In order of appear.ance, Jack Hostetler, Matt Jaro, Henry Bennett, Jamie Brewer, Dr. Robert Penna, Uwe Generet, Harold Wade and Paul Senger all deserve big pats on the back for contributing visually interesting and mentally stimulating content for all of us to enjoy. There is so much to this hobby, I feel like I’m learning something new each time I put together another issue. I encour.age everyone to keep sending in articles that let us all learn and grow together in our pursuit of mechanical music nirvana.
Now, to timely news. Recently, I received a letter from Musical Box Society of Great Britain Vice-President Alison Biden that really didn’t look like it would fit anywhere else in this issue so I’ve chosen to include it here.
“I wonder if you would care to publish this letter in Mechanical Music to bring members of the MBSI up-to.date with developments surrounding one of the subjects I included in my workshop at the 2019 convention in Rockville? Those who were present may remember my talking about the precarious future of a rare Imhof & Mukle orchestrion which had been installed under the stairs in Kinloch Castle, an Edwardian-era hunting lodge on the Scottish Island of Rum. Not only was the orchestrion (often referred to, albeit erroneously, as ‘Queen Victoria’s Orchestrion’) deteriorating, but the entire castle, which had been left to the state by its last private owner, was in danger of falling into ruin. A charitable organi.zation, the Friends of Kinloch Castle Association, was hoping to raise enough funds to rescue both the castle and its contents.
Following the impact of Covid on tourism, and the restrictions on movement generally, it has been decided by the owner (Scottish Nature – the equivalent of the English National Trust) to put it up for sale. This has been reported widely in the British press, although reports vary as to whether the asking price is a nominal £1 (GBP) or a modest £70K.
This is an opportunity for someone to own a piece of Scottish heritage – as well as a fine mechanical musical instrument — although any would-be purchaser is advised that the orches.trion requires repairs last estimated at £50,000, and the ‘castle’ requires several million spent to restore it.
Good background information can be found at https://bit.ly/2VOhOVq. It is also possible to learn more by
MAILING ADDRESS
MBSI Editorial / Advertising 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449
EMAIL ADDRESS
editor@mbsi.org
PHONE
(253) 228-1634
searching ‘Kinloch Castle’ on the
internet:
One hopes a benefactor will come
forward so the orchestrion, if not the
castle, may be saved.
Kind regards
Alison”
This sort of information seems like it plays directly to our society’s mission, which calls for MBSI to cooperate with individuals and other organizations in exhibiting automatic music for the education of the general public. Our mission statement also encourages the society to generally stimulate interest in automatic music. (Read the full mission statement at www.mbsi.org/about/mission.)
I’m certainly not advocating for the society to take direct action on this particular item since that would be something best left to the Board of Trustees and might likely need to be voted on by the full membership.
My only goal here is to expose a wonderful opportunity for any one member or group of members of this society to support the continued pres.ervation of this significant place and the mechanical music within.
Welcome new members!
David VanSciver & Lowell Collins June 2021 Marlton, NJ Daniel Walker Greg Minuskin Renton, WA Tustin, CA Lanny Hunter Sponsor: Don CaineSarasota, FL Sponsor: Glen Gurwit July 2021MaryHope Milligan Amanda HoStatesville, NC North Brunswick, NJBarrie Wright Kathleen & Terry Hillis Fairfax, VA Nevada City, CA Russell Kriegel & Mark Williams San Jose, CA Robert Howard Newport News, VA Elizabeth & Thomas Fisher-York Ithaca, NY Allen Salyer Troy, MI Rich LeVangie & Kathy Dunn Nashua, NH Kim Westphalen Lakewood Ranch, FL Dean Bullock & Bryan Malone Folsom, CA
Special exhibit opportunities abound
By Jack Hostetler
Special Exhibits Committee Member,
Southeast Chapter
I am writing this article to point out opportunities that surely exist in your hometown for special exhibits of mechanical music. Every town has festivals, parades, restored antique homes and buildings, science centers, outdoor parks and other venues that welcome our special exhibits. One selling point they all love is when members of our society offer to put on an exhibit for free! Let me tell you a bit about how the Southeast Chapter makes sharing our hobby happen here in The Villages, FL.
Mary-Ann and I joined MBSI in 2012. We quickly formed a small local club called the Mechanical Music Society of The Villages. I was sure that this club could help smooth the path for MBSI to put on special exhibits of instruments and present information to others who might find an interest in this hobby in The Villages. So far, it’s worked very well and the society has gained some new members through our efforts.
Our club began planning special exhibits for The Villages almost immediately. I contacted Wayne and Mary Ellen Myers to see what the international society might do to bring mechanical music machines here for display. Wayne and Mary Ellen agreed to visit The Villages to see how this city of over-55-year-olds functioned.
We contacted the city’s recreation department and they arranged for us to participate in a two-day Christmas exhibit that would run alongside an annual model railroad club exhibit. This was in 2013.
Our first show was a success. We had a room filled with music machines and several MBSI members attended to demonstrate and talk about them. Hundreds of people came through the display, and it has since become an annual event.
Over time, our display grew larger, and we found that some machines were louder than others, so we now use two rooms. One room is for softer playing machines and the other for the more outspoken. We also had a Wurlitzer 105 organ parked on a trailer outside the recreation center to welcome people as they arrived in the parking lot. Our 2021 show will be our eighth annual presentation. We “lost” last year to the pandemic.
Wayne and Mary Ellen developed a teaching exercise that allows children to build and decorate their own music box. They introduced this event at the Orlando Science Center several years ago and continue to present it at our special exhibit with great success.
The Villages Recreation Depart.ment heard of the program and they contacted us to see if we would be willing to put on an encore. They present programs every summer for visiting grandchildren to work with grandparents, called Summer Camp. We have now presented our Summer Camp music box building program six times as of this year. We usually see 30 or more children with grandparents taking part in building a music box. They also learn how music is made in the box.
Mary Ellen Myers assists Summer Campers with their music box construc.tion project.
Our indoor activities came to the attention of the The Villages Enter.tainment Department, which is in charge of providing outdoor activities. They asked if we could have a display at one of their festivals. We said sure. So, for three years now we have had a display in the downtown area during a festival and parade. We had lots of people come to our display attracted by the large organ on a trailer (our “Pied Piper”).
Word then got around in The Villages that we could present wonderful displays for both indoor and outdoor events, and all free! I was contacted by a group that has been restoring a home built ca. 1892. The Baker House, as it is called, was the home of a Florida senator who moved there in 1890 or so. The group restoring the house asked if we might display some mechanical music machines from that period in the house during their annual Legacy Festival. I said we sure would.
I displayed my Concert Roller Organ and my Edison Home Phonograph in the front parlor. Many people came to see the house and were fascinated with the machines and music from that time. I repeated the exhibit the next year. Each time was another opportunity to talk about MBSI and the mechanical music hobby.
In 2020, the pandemic caused the Legacy Festival to be canceled. Even so, we received another request to put on a show-and-tell at a local Rotary club. We were ready to go, but the meeting was put on hold until Rotary meetings can resume. We will be ready when they are.
In summary, our experiences so far have shown us that MBSI special exhibits are well received everywhere because they offer good music, wonderful machines with history, nostalgia, and entertainment. Plus, the organizers of these events love that we do it for free!
All you need to do to get started is to contact someone in charge of festivi.ties in your area. Perhaps start with your local chamber of commerce, Rotary or Lions club, or even your city’s recreation department. Offer to conduct your exhibit along with what.ever other displays are happening at the time. You might even consider presenting single-day exhibits at a high school or nearby college in association with a celebration of a historically significant date or other holiday event or even at an assisted care facility.
All it takes is one good presentation to start spreading the word that you are available to present an exhibit that will entertain crowds and soon you will be quite popular!
Bring advertising pamphlets (avail.able from the MBSI administrator) and registration forms for MBSI to display next to your exhibits. We have signed up several new MBSI members at our exhibits and we’d love to see you do the same. Putting on a special exhibit of mechanical music at a local event where people can experience the joy of this hobby is a win-win situation if ever there was one.
Nickel Notes
By Matthew Jaro
The Nethercutt Collection
The Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, CA (near Los Angeles), houses the largest array of mechanical musical instruments on public display in the United States. J.B. Nethercutt, along with his aunt, Merle Norman, founded Merle Norman Cosmetics. J.B. started collecting and restoring antique auto.mobiles in 1956. In 1971, he and his wife, Dorothy, built a museum which has been free to the public since its inception. The first tours began in 1974. Now, J.B.’s eldest son, Jack, is head of the corporation and the museum foundation.
This article chronicles a conver.sation I had with the curator of the mechanical music collection and master technician. His name is Kyle B. Irwin.
The start of the mechanical music collection
I knew that the Nethercutt Collec.tion had started with automobiles, so I asked how J.B. Nethercutt became interested in mechanical music. Kyle said that J.B. had already started construction on a building to house his collection when he decided to buy his wife a present. He found a beautiful cloisonné music box. It was the size of a powder box (about three inches). When you played it, a little bird would pop up and sing. While shopping for the music box, J.B. couldn’t help but notice the large display of nickelode.ons and orchestrions around him. Why? Well, because he happened to be shopping at Hathaway and Bowers!
For our younger readers, let me
In the Grand Salon room of the music building are even more cars. The floor below and the floor above this are filled with music
boxes, automata, French furniture and more.
explain that Hathaway and Bowers, the store named for owners Terry Hathaway and Q. David Bowers, was a source for all types of mechanical musical instruments. Located in Santa Fe Springs, CA, the store had a sales floor where you could buy almost any instrument. Hathaway and Bowers published catalogs that created intense public interest in the instruments we all know and love today. It would be hard to overestimate their influence on the hobby of collecting mechanical music machines. Older readers might remember that in the 1950s nickel.odeons were being destroyed in large numbers because they were consid.ered obsolete machines with little or no value. European mechanical music machines were largely unknown in the United States at the time. Hatha.way and Bowers helped turn the tide and made mechanical music machines attractive and valuable again.
Anyway, J.B. Nethercutt looked around at all the wonderful machines, asking Hathaway and Bowers to demonstrate them. Kyle said J.B. just went a little nuts with it. He loved music and anything mechanical (cars, trains, etc.). He literally purchased one of the finest museum reference collec.tions in the world – the Hathaway and Bowers Collection. While machines in the Hathaway and Bowers Collection were not exactly for sale – it was strictly intended to be a reference collection – Mr. Nethercutt made them an offer they couldn’t refuse and the rest is history.
Growing the Collection
There are currently two buildings in the Nethercutt Collection. The first building was begun in 1971 and completed in 1974. There was an earthquake in Sylmar, CA, in 1971. The building was only a skeletal frame when the earthquake occurred. None of the collections were in this building at the time. Since the building was only a frame, the builders were able to retrofit the building for better earthquake tolerance. Eventually, the collection outgrew the original build.ing, and in the year 2000, construction on the museum building was begun. This building houses 150 additional cars and has a separate area in the back for the train.
The Nethercutt Collection includes a massive, 5,000-pipe Wurlitzer Theatre organ, also Kyle’s responsibility.
Short Biography
I asked Kyle to describe his years before obtaining the dream job of being curator of the Nethercutt Collection.
Kyle said he always loved music. He grew up in a church-going family and instead of going to Sunday School, Kyle always wanted to go to the big church to hear the organ play. He absolutely fell in love with it. At the end of the service, when the organist would play exit music, Kyle would run up to the organ and the organist would pick him up and sit him next to her. Kyle would watch her play. When the organist finished, she would turn on the bells and without banging or anything Kyle would play the melody line, by ear, of what she had just finished playing.
The organist became Kyle’s first piano teacher when he was 4 years old. He started playing the organ for church services when he was 7 or 8 years old. Kyle has been an organist pretty much all his life. He’s still an organist and choirmaster at a church in downtown Los Angeles (one of the founding churches of the city).
Kyle’s love for pipe organs grew so great that he wanted to know how they worked. He apprenticed and learned how to service, tune and rebuild organs to some extent. Many years later, he owned his own company servicing pipe organs. They would maintain, tune and rebuild pipe organs all over Southern California. Then his business partner passed away. Kyle was going to dissolve the business and retire, but during that period J.B. Nethercutt contacted Kyle and asked him to come and take care of his collection. Kyle said he just couldn’t say no. Thirteen years later, he is still going strong.
Museum Tours
The Nethercutt Museum (which consists mainly of the automobile collection) is open for self-guided tours Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Nether.cutt Collection (separate from the museum) is available to view by guided tour only. Unfortunately for all us mechanical music lovers, the tour is temporarily closed with no reserva.tions being accepted at this time.
The two-hour tour normally takes people to four floors of the collection building. The building houses some of the finer cars in the Nethercutt Collection, plus 18th and 19th century French furniture, clocks and watches, automata, reproducing pianos, nick.elodeons, orchestrions, more than 100 music boxes, not to mention the third largest theatre pipe organ in the world. All tours are entirely free to the public.
The Fifth Floor
There is a fifth floor which is not open to the public since there is no safe way to bring groups of people in.
The elevator only holds six people. On the fifth floor, there is a library of more than 40,000 music rolls. The roll library is still growing, and many people donate new rolls each year. On this floor is an example of almost every player piano system ever built. They even have a Tel-Electric. The
Kyle demonstrates the Tel-Electric in the fifth-floor workshop The Wurlitzer Mandolin PianOrchestra, Style 40, featuring 42
area.
beauty of the Nethercutt Collection is that everything in it works! J.B. Nethercutt’s dream was to preserve and share the beauty of these instru.ments but never to hoard them. Even though there are a lot of pianos on the fifth floor, no two are alike. Each has a different player system. They have rolls for the original Stoddard-Ampico, the Ampico-A and B, red Welte, green Welte, Recordo, Apollo, Themodist and 88-note rolls. They have early and later Duo-Art reproducing pianos, a rare electric Duo-Art, all the Welte systems, and pianos that will play all of those rolls.
There are more than 8,000 Ampico rolls in the collection. Docents donated their time one summer to help organize the Ampico rolls.
One of the newer acquisitions was the Blüthner Triphonola (supposedly
violin pipes, 12 violas, 30 cellos and so much more.
the only one in the United States).
I asked Kyle about the problem of the roll paper. As most of our readers know, the original Ampico and Duo-Art rolls are brittle and they tend to shred. Kyle said they only have original Wurlitzer APP rolls and the paper is quite brittle for these as well. He expressed a need to obtain copies (recuts) of APP rolls to play on the instruments. Kyle said he also needs Pianino rolls. He only has six original rolls for the Pianino and that’s it.
Nickelodeons and Orchestrions
I asked Kyle for a short list of the nickelodeons and orchestrions in the collection. There is no actual list, so Kyle had to look through the file cabinet to name the instruments in the collection. The following are details of the American machines (and machines distributed by American companies).
Seeburg L: The smallest Seeburg model with piano and mandolin rail. It plays A rolls.
Seeburg KT: A G-roll piano with mandolin rail, xylophone, castanets, triangle, tambourine and (rare) snare drum.
Seeburg Photoplayer: A pipe-organ orchestra, Style R, with violin, flute, cello, Vox Humana, xylophone, cathe.dral chimes, tremolo, bass drum, snare drum, cymbal, crash cymbal, triangle, organ swell, 88-note piano, castanets, tambourine, mandolin, tom-tom effect, telephone bell, doorbell, fire gong, horse trot, tympani effect, steamboat whistle, bird whistle, baby cry, wind siren and thunder effect.
Wurlitzer Pianino: A 44-note piano, the pianino was in production for more than 25 years although few remain
The music roll library, featuring more than 40,000 rolls.
today.
Wurlitzer LX: Introduced in mid-1921, the LX was the last in the keyboard orchestrions series. It has a piano with mandolin rail, 38 violin pipes, 38 flute pipes, a set of orchestra bells, bass drum, snare drum and triangle.
Wurlitzer Automatic Harp: Tiny mechanical fingers actually pluck the strings.
Wurlitzer Mandolin Quartette: It has 34 notes and a separate 27-note repeating mandolin mechanism. When a note plays in the mandolin section, the pneumatic pushes a wooden lever into the path of a rotating camshaft. This causes the small, hard felt-covered hammer to repeat rapidly against the strings producing a loud metallic tone. Dave Ramey has a wonderful video of the machine in action. Search YouTube for Wurlitzer Mandolin Quartette.
Wurlitzer Tonophone: The first Wurlitzer coin piano. The machines were made from 1899 to 1908. Early machines were made by DeKleist. The first machines used a 10-tune wooden Wurlitzer Mandolin PianOrchestra: cylinder and were later converted to Style 40 with piano, mandolin, 42 violin play Wurlitzer APP rolls. The Tono-pipes, 12 violas, 30 cellos, xylophone, phone in the collection is a barrel drums and percussion effects. These piano. machines were built by Philipps.
The Encore Banjo was the first coin-operated musical instru-A Regina Sublima Piano and Mandolin Orchestra powered by
ment, marketed in late 1896.
Wurlitzer Concert PianOrchestra: A Philipps Pianella Model 32 (Caecilia) with piano, 56 violins, 30 cellos, 30 violas, 26 saxophones, 30 flutes, 30 piccolos, 30 clarinets, 30 oboes, 26 French horns, chimes, bass and snare drums, triangle, tambourine, castanets, tremolo, kettle drum and cymbals.
Encore Banjo: This was the first coin-operated musical instrument, marketed in late 1896. It consists of four metal pickers and 40 leather-faced fingerings buttons. It has a two-octave range and many duplicate notes. It can play a melody and accompaniment at the same time.
Mills Bow-front Violano Virtuoso: This style was the commercial model and was popular from 1912-1915. The Mills is an electrically operated instrument, instead of the pneumatic systems used by most of the nickelodeons and
a spring motor that must be wound by hand.
orchestrions. It has a violin and piano.
Mills Double Violano Virtuoso: This style plays two violins and has a heavier piano than used in the home models. Both violins play the same notes.
Regina Sublima Piano and Mandolin Orchestra: This is powered by a spring motor which must be wound by hand. It plays a five-tune roll on heavy manila paper. Metal fingers read the perfora.tions. The piano hammer re-iterates, producing an effect like a mandolin.
Automatic Musical Company, Automatic Self-Playing Xylophone: Since the bars are metal, it is technically a glocken.spiel. It was made in 1905. This is the only example known to exist. It’s a solo instrument, having a xylophone only. The company was in Bingham.ton, NY, and would eventually become the Link Company.
Multiphone Cylinder Changer: This
can only roughly be described as a mechanical music machine. It is a coin-operated juke box that plays Edison cylinders. One of 24 cylinders can be selected.
And now we move on to some details of the European Machines in the collection.
Gloria Monopol Double-disk Music Box: This was sold by George Schneider and has his name in gold letters on the front. The two discs rotate in opposite directions, unlike most music boxes. It is known for its superb tone.
Weber Maestro: Musically one of the finest German orchestrions ever made. It has 112 pipes, 28 each of violins, flutes, trumpets/saxophones and clarinets. There is a three-speed vibrato, piano with mandolin attachment, 28-note xylophone, bass drum, tympani effect, snare drum,
The Hupfeld Excelsior Pan Orchester is the largest example of this type of machine ever made. It once played in the Postzegel Hotel in Holland but came to America in 1966. This machine is located above the Grand Salon in the music building.
cymbal, triangle, castanets, wood block and tambourine. It has a pipe and xylophone solo capability and an automatic register for piano treble.
Weber Brabo: This machine has a piano with mandolin, 28 violin pipes, vibrato and 28-note repeating xylo.phone. It has an elaborate expression mechanism. Solo instruments can be heard alone.
Welte Wotan: This is one of the Welte Brass Band Orchestrion series. The Wotan would replace a brass band of about 30 to 35 men. This instrument sold for $5,000 in 1912. This orches.trion has first and second cornets, first and second clarinets, trumpet, alto, trombone, French horn, baritone, bass, contra bass, saxophone, bour.don, piccolo, oboe, flutes, xylophone, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals and triangle. It is 12 feet, 9 inches high and 9 feet, 3 inches wide. The middle panel represents the fire scene from the Walküre picturing Siegfried and Brünnhilde.
Welte Style III Cottage Orchestrion: This beautiful orchestrion has 134 pipes and 44 notes. It has bass drum, tympani effect, snare drum, cymbal and triangle. It is 9 feet, 7 inches high.
Welte Philharmonic Organ Orchestrion: These machines were automatic pipe organs. They were supplied in various sizes and configurations.
Hupfeld Excelsior Pan Orchestra: This is the largest example ever made. It took two years to build and was delivered to the Postzegel Hotel in Holland. It remained there until it was acquired by Eugene DeRoy in 1966. He cared for it from the delivery date to the present. Using a heavily multi.plexed 124-note roll, several different orchestral voices could be played simultaneously. The piano portion is a reproducing piano so that original expression is maintained.
Hupfeld Helios Lb/29 Orchestrion: An overstrung piano with mandolin, regis.ters of pipes for violin, flute and cello, orchestral bells, bass drum, Chinese cymbal, snare drum and expression effects.
Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violana: A machine with three violins bowed by a circular horsehair bow. Mechanical fingers select the notes. A piano plays the accompaniment.
Mortier Style 41 Café Organ: It uses fully chromatic 84-key cardboard books. It has 311 pipes, bass drum, snare drum, cymbal and wood block. There are ranks of melody jazz flute, violin, and unda maris pipes. For countermelody, there is a Vox Celeste, flute and cello. There are also bass pipes.
Philipps Model 3 Paganini Orchestrion (Wurlitzer Paganini Violin Piano, Style 3) (on the fifth floor): This machine has 39 loud violins, 39 soft violins, 27
flageolets, 12 extended octave violins, 44-note harmonium (metal reeds) accompaniment and variable speed tremolo. This is the only surviving example imported and sold by Wurlitzer.
Philipps Keyboard Style Paganini Orchestrion Style 3: This machine has 117 pipes, 39 each of loud and soft violins, 27 flageolets, 12 high-octave violins, variable speed vibrato, 44 harmonium reeds and piano.
Popper Salon Orchestra No. 1: Manufactured from about 1912 until well into the 1920s, this was one of the most popular Popper models ever made. It consists of a piano, mandolin, xylophone, bells, bass and snare drums, cymbals and triangle. An extended rank of pipes is arranged in a double row and represents violin and cello. There is a harmonium as well. The top of the case has louvered swell shutters for expression. The front is a motion picture effect scene that is backlighted and shows two waxing and waning torches in the marble patio of an ancient Roman villa. It’s 9 feet, 4 inches high.
Popper Gladiator (No. 7) Symphony Orchestra: This machine has a piano, mandolin, xylophone, bells, piccolo flute, violin pipes, muted strings, violin solo, clarinet, flute, violoncello,
The Popper Gladiator is 14 feet wide and 11 feet, 4 inches tall. The Popper Iduna Orchestrion was built in 1915. It is located The Philipps Model 3 Paganini can play loud and soft violins.
in the automobile building.
viola, horn, bass flute, trombone, bass violin, bass, snare drum, kettle drum, cymbals and triangle. It’s 11 feet, 4 inches high by 14 feet wide. Four of these were sold in Belgium in the late 1920s. This example is the only one currently known to exist.
Popper Jazz Flute: This is one of the latest orchestrions made by Popper, dating from the late 1920s. Its modern case design is about 11 feet high. The featured solo instrument is the Swanee Whistle mounted in a niche on the front. Above this, there is a series of recessed panels which constantly change color. Instrumen.tation includes piano, mandolin, ranks of pipes including a large rank of saxophones, and drum and trap effects. This orchestrion has a jazz theme since the saxophone is the
It is the only surviving example of its kind.
most prominent pipe rank.
Popper Othello Orchestrion: The Popper catalogue states that it is a “Mechanical piano orchestrion with mandolin and xylophone. Othello is delivered in a tasteful case with painted glass panels and contains 31 piano keys, 18 of which operate the mandolin, 10 xylophone keys, drum, cymbals and triangle. Othello is delivered with two barrels, playing six different tunes.”
Popper Iduna Orchestrion (1915): This machine is located in the car building and provides an excellent background. It has a piano, mandolin, several ranks of pipes, xylophone, bells, drums, triangle and cymbal. It was billed by Popper as “A first class concert orchestra suitable also for dancing.”
I would like to acknowledge Q.
David Bowers and his “Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments” as well as Arthur Reblitz and his book, “The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments,” for providing the detailed information on the instru.ments listed above.
Pianos
There are some truly remarkable pianos in the Nethercutt Collection. These include:
Hupfeld Triphonola: This is one of the most recent acquisitions. Prior to production of this model, Hupfeld had offered the Solophonola and Duoph.onola systems. This machine plays all 88 piano notes (unlike the Ampico and Duo-Art systems), with 10 notes for expression. The Duophonola and the Triphonola were identical except that the Triphonola has foot pedals for pumping in addition to an electric motor. The Triphonola was the first Hupfeld instrument with a tracking device (to keep the holes properly aligned on the tracker bar).
Erhbar Piano with Hupfeld DEA Vorsetzer: This very ornate piano was completed in 1898 and was a gift from the Friedrich Erhbar Company to Emperor Franz Josef in the year he celebrated his 50-year reign. It’s an Opus 10,000 and has a mahogany case with 18 coats of hand-rubbed Chinese lacquer and gold ormolu all the way around (representing the various provinces of Austria) applied over a green Chinese silk velvet background. It measures a full 8 feet, 10 inches long. The Hupfeld DEA Vorsetzer is the only reproducing system that appeared as both complete pianos and vorsetzers. A vorsetzer (literally front sitter) is a device that can be pushed up to a piano so that pneumatic fingers can actuate the keys.
The DEA used wide rolls, approxi.mately 16 inches across, and a 106-note tracker bar with 85 playing notes. The DEA had a very complex system with variable bass and treble divisions. Some of the greatest pianists recorded for the DEA. Among them were D’Al.bert, Busoni, Corot, Godowsky, Grieg, Landowska, Mascagni, Saint-Saëns, Plante, Reger, Scharwenka, Scriabin and others. Kyle said that the DEA is a very sensitive reproducing system.
Steinway “Villa Leon” Piano with Duo-Art Mechanism: In 1929, the Steinway Piano Company sent a nine-foot Concert Grand to the Aeolian Company and asked them to design a one-of-a-kind Louis XV art case to accommodate a special Duo-Art reproducing mechanism. Because the piano was located in an estate called the “Villa Leon” it is now known by that name.
Steinway Grand with Welte Red-Roll Vorsetzer: The Welte was the only company to offer a competing vorsetzer to the Hupfeld. The red-roll machines and the rolls are pretty rare now.
The Tel-Electric Piano Player: This machine is unusual in that is uses a brass roll (instead of paper), three thousandths of an inch thick. The roll The Wurlitzer Theatre Organ is encased in a cylinder 51/8 inches The showcase of the Nethercutt long. Collection is the beautiful Wurlitzer
Virtually every reproducing and 4/74 Theatre Organ. It’s the largest player piano system are represented theatre organ on the West Coast and in this collection. They are too numer-the third largest in the world. It has ous to mention here. 5,123 pipes and 74 ranks. The largest
Top photo: the Wurlitzer Theatre Organ console. Bottom photo: some of the 5,123 pipes the organ uses to produce music.
in the world is the Jasper Sanfilippo organ, a 5/80, which means five manu.als and 80 ranks. The second largest is the Organ Stop Pizza Organ in Mesa, AZ, with 4 manuals and 78 ranks.
The Nethercutts insist that every.thing on the showroom floor remain in pristine condition. The museum formerly employed eight or nine people in the music department, but now there’s just Kyle. It’s his respon.sibility to take care of everything, so he does all the restoration and main.tenance work except for any major piano tuning. A piano technician comes in to do that on a regular basis. Kyle tunes all the organ pipes himself.
Kyle says his main focus is to make sure the organ is always playable. There are enough instruments in the collection that one can be rotated off the floor if it needs to be serviced, but this one organ is unique and must play for every single tour.
Kyle said there was one day it didn’t play and he heard an earful about it. I asked about servicing the organ and suggested that there must be a million relays. He said there might originally have been that many, but now it’s all solid state. They use the Uniflex system because the organ is so big.
Kyle says the organ is an amazing instrument and notes it is thrilling to play. He fires it up every morning and plays for half an hour to an hour. He makes sure he plays every note, to see if there’s anything dead. The organ is 97 years old, so it’s common for things to quit working. Magnets can die or pneumatics blow out on a daily basis. Most of the organ was re-leathered in 1984 and then more of it was done in 1993.
The museum has a collection of thousands of LP records featuring organ music with Leon Berry (who played the Nethercutt organ), George Wright (who, unfortunately never played there), Rex Khoury, Tom Hazelton, Ron Rhodes and Lyn Larsen. Many of these people were like house organists.
Instrument Maintenance
I asked Kyle if he ever had to move machines into the shop to work on them. Kyle said there are special hoists built into the organ and into the workshop on the fifth floor. There is a freight elevator for the orchestrions. All the machines are on wheels. The wheels can be unlocked from their stationary position and then the machines can be wheeled into the freight elevator. I asked what happens if a gear or a metal part breaks. Kyle said he takes the part into the auto shop and the guys there make him a new one. If they can’t make a part, they send it out and have it done by a specialist. The machine shop guys have a cloth wire-wrapping machine so they can duplicate any part in any instrument or any part in any car as long as they have an original part or details of what the original cloth-wrapped wire measurement looked like.
I asked Kyle if he really has the dream job, and he said yes but added that it’s still a lot of work. Kyle said the keys to keeping it fun are to not take too many things apart, keep a level head and prioritize. He said if he gets bored or frustrated with one machine, he moves on to another because it gives him a fresh plate from which to work. All the maintenance and restoration work has to take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because Kyle gives tours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. He takes Sundays and Mondays off.
Temperature and humidity in the museum buildings are kept constant. Many of these instruments came from a damp Europe to a dry California and there would be problems without regulation. The humidity is kept at 40 percent to 60 percent. If there were to be two or three hours without regu.lation, the instruments might start to misbehave, or there would be cyphers, and mistracking. Plus, the paper would change, too. The downside to keeping the humidity so high is that the relative dampness tends to rust the wires fastening the crystals in the chandeliers hanging from the ceilings.
I imagine, however, these wires can be replaced a lot more easily than repair.ing the mechanical music machines constantly. Remember that Sylmar, CA, is almost the desert, so conditions are very dry.
New Acquisitions and Donations
I asked about acquiring instru.ments. Kyle said the first thing they do is heavy research. For example, the Triphonola is in a very bizarre case. It looks simple from under the case, but when you start taking things apart, it’s a whole other story. Kyle hasn’t had much of a chance to work on it yet because it has an extremely low priority.
I asked how they decided what rolls to add to the collection. Kyle said they are generally not too picky about it, except for standard 88-note rolls because they already have so many. I found that funny because the player piano outlasted all of the other instruments as did the art of making rolls for them. You can get rolls for music written a few years ago. Reproducing rolls are very important and if someone offers these rolls, Kyle said he will absolutely take them regardless of whether they would be duplicates or not because they do need to be preserved. Duplicates are important because the probability that a roll might be ruined while playing is relatively high, Kyle said. Plus, “We are in earthquake country and things do happen, so you never know,” he added.
Kyle said they lost quite a few rolls in the 1994 earthquake, not because of the shaking but because one of the main water lines broke. It flooded the roll room and anything that was six inches to a foot off the floor was destroyed. The good thing was nobody was hurt and the machines in the collection were safe.
I mentioned that people might want to donate instruments to the museum. Kyle said he would dearly love to have a band organ. “That would be so much fun, to display near the train for special events,” he said. The Neth.ercutts are open to donations being made to the collection. I mentioned that when people donate instruments or rolls to the Smithsonian or similar organizations, they are generally just shelved or maybe even thrown out. In the Nethercutt Collection it is quite the opposite. When they get donations, Kyle said the machines and rolls will be used. They don’t want something that is just going to sit there. They get offers all the time for pump pianos, but they can’t take those. Kyle said that, lately, there has been a spate of square grands offered as donations.
He said that as beautiful as they were for furniture, they are useless as musi.cal instruments.
The spirit of the collection is so nice. It has a very warm feeling. J.B. Nethercutt said that the purpose of the collection would be to preserve and not to hoard. His collected cars are taken out and driven. His instru.ments are kept in pristine working condition and played on a daily basis. His collection lives on.
CEO Jack Nethercutt also loves the instruments. He’s the oldest son of the founder. He used to be a professional racer. When he hosts special guests, he often wants people to hear the “Phan.tom of the Opera” medley played by Lyn Larsen and Chris Gorsuch’s rendi.tion of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”
Plans for the future
The entire collection was converted into a foundation in 2003-2004, just prior to J.B Nethercutt’s passing, so it will be well protected for a long time. It cannot be sold off or liquidated, and any profits from any sale would have to go back into the foundation, not to the family. J.B. planned very well to protect his work and his son has been doing a very good job of taking it into the next generation. Jack’s wife has done a great job of assisting and adding her input to the collection as well. There will be more generations to come.
The website, www.nethercuttcol.lection.org features an equal balance between cars and music.
If you find yourself in the Los Ange.les area, the Nethercutt Collection should be on your must-see list. It’s an absolutely fabulous place to visit and words can’t do justice to the thrill of seeing all the instruments in action. Best of all, as mentioned before, all the tours are entirely free to the public.
Email Matt Jaro at mjaro@verizon. net if you would like any information about style “A”, “G”, “4X”, “H” or “O” rolls. Also, comments and suggestions for this column will be appreciated.
Reprinted with permission of the author and The Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors’ Association (AMICA). Originally printed in the January-February 2016 issue of The AMICA Bulletin.
A ‘Family Affair’
The Intriguing Tale of an Imhof & Mukle Flute Organ
By Henry Bennett
It was a rainy afternoon in the autumn of 1963 when, as a bored teenager, I accompanied my mother to collect something she remembered from her childhood home. We drove into a dark wood near the village of Eastleach in the Cotswolds that intrigued me as it was known as Macaroni Wood. I was further intrigued when we came to a rectangular clearing deep in the wood and a gloomy looking Nissen Hut left over from a secret World War II camp. My mother produced a key and inside was a verita.ble Aladdin’s cave of stuffy Victorian artefacts which had been hastily removed from nearby Hatherop Castle when it was requisitioned for wartime use by the military. Ignoring chandeliers and stuffed animal trophies galore, my eyes lit on a couple of wooden cases on the floor, one bulging with iron wheels and levers, the other stacked with strange looking wooden organ pipes. I was learning to play the organ at school and, typical for a boy, had become fasci.nated by their complicated mechanisms. But what on earth was this? All carefully packed up, but the pipes were not normal pipes and I could see a mass of lead tubing but no keyboard. “Oh, that’s the old Flute Organ” said my mother casually and continued rummaging around. But on the way home I quizzed her endlessly and begged to have another look. Thinking back, it reminds me now of Tutankhamun’s Tomb! We lived on a farm and had a large outhouse where we boys spent our days with games and gadgets. A plan rapidly developed in my head to approach the relevant uncle and my long-suffering parents and persuade them all that I was just the one to rescue the instrument, whatever it might turn out to be. I have no memory of who helped, for help was certainly needed, but a trailer was found and in due course an extremely heavy object found its way to our outhouse.
For a period of at least two years I was left entirely to myself on the project. I knew nothing myself and obviously my family knew even less, but they listened to my daily frustrations with great patience and helped where they could. At first it was just a matter of careful dismantling and observation. Then gradual replacement of worn mate.rials. Looking back on my youth and the marked isolation of our life on the farm, I have no idea how I was able to obtain leather of the right grade or master the art of mixing
Members attending the 2019 convention held in Rockville may have attended one of the workshops presented by British member, Alison Biden, featuring three unusual instruments in Britain with precarious futures. One is an orchestrion made by Imhof and Mukle, currently mouldering on the Scottish island of Rum, while a team of dedicated would-be-rescuers try to raise the funds to have it restored. As a consequence of their activity, there are a number of articles about this instrument posted on the internet. Sometime during the late Summer of 2020, MBSI Award-winning author Kevin McElhone, was contacted by a gentleman by the name of Henry Bennett, who had learned about Kevin and the Musical Box Society of Great Britain through his on-line research as he sought information about Imhof & Mukle, makers of a flute organ he had just taken possession of.
Henry was keen to meet others who might share his passion for similar instruments, so his request was passed to the Editor of the MBSGB’s magazine The Music Box. During their conversation it transpired that Henry’s flute organ had been in his family for generations, but had had a somewhat vagabond life since he had first seen it as a child. He had finally had it completely restored professionally – and on visiting the workshop of restorers Goetze & Gwynn had met the great-grandson of no lesser a person than Daniel Imhof himself.
This is music to an editor’s ears – what a story! Henry Bennett was persuaded to write an article about his flute organ. And what a story it turned out to be.
hot animal glue, though miraculously we already had the proper cast iron glue pot and we came to love the smell of the glue. The main feeder bellows were simply a matter of copying what was done before. There were three pairs of these, two pairs to supply the wind for the pipes and the third pair working in opposite mode to provide a vacuum for the playing mechanism. But that mechanism was far more delicate, a three-stage process where each note is triggered by a row of tiny needles popping up through holes punched in the paper music roll. These needles let air into two rows of “puffers,” about the size of a matchbox and lined with very thin leather. They in turn are connected to larger bellows, the size of fish fingers, which collapse under vacuum, and those are the fingers which play the notes. In
Joe Marsden, left, and Dominic Gwynn, one of the partners in the organ building firm of Goetz & Gwynn, coaxing the flute organ across the author’s garden to spend a year undergoing a complete professional restoration.
theory of course! I do remember the endless persistence and some major setbacks. How, for instance, to cover the little “puffers” which required some extremely thin and sensitive material. My mother “came up trumps” – she had a whole drawer full of ladies’ white kid gloves, a relic from the halcyon days of grand dinner parties and dances in the house where the organ used to play. She allowed me to cut them all up into 66 small squares and glue them in place. At last, everything was back in place for the great test, the first sounds in 50 years, and I pressed the button – but absolutely nothing – complete silence! That got me talking to a wider circle and I happened on an organ builder who sent me some Zephyr pigskin made from unborn piglets. I still remember it arriving and starting the laborious process all over again, and with much better results. Then the original 1905 electric motor was thought to be unusable so I bought something second-hand with my pocket money on Exchange & Mart. It was pale green and completely unsuitable, and the result was a scary rendition of the Corelli “Pastorale” played at least double speed! The orig.inal motor had a wonderful switch comprising two open pots of mercury into which prongs of a fork dipped in and out with blinding flashes (which had terrified my mother as a girl). Sadly, that switch has been lost but eventually I was able to adapt the original motor which still ran as good as new in perfect silence.
It was only when these first faltering steps progressed to some amazingly virtuoso, yet wholly unreliable, performances that anyone (besides me) took the slightest interest in the flute organ. Only at that point did my mother mention that my uncle still had the original organ case where it took pride of place in his house as a very splendid
Joe Marsden, of Goetze & Gwynn, was in charge of the restoration.
wardrobe. Nothing is ever complicated when one is young, but I can imagine now that she needed a great deal of tact in persuading her brother to give up his main wardrobe for his nephew’s white elephant project. But, it seemed to me quite normal that we should turn up at his house with a trailer and remove it. The instrument then came together properly for the first time in 50 years. It had probably not functioned since before the First World War. Its future was bound to be precarious. Initially, I loaned the instrument to a village museum in Bibury where it shared company with ancient water wheels and flour milling machinery, and there it languished while I went off to university.
Parental pressure then piled on, and a scheme was hatched whereby John Bailey, an organ builder friend from Bishops and Sons in Ipswich, undertook to restore the instrument to greater reliability and loan it to the Cotton Mechanical Music Museum in Stowmarket. Our family heirloom went out of my life entirely for some 40 years. I entered working life and this obsession of teenage years was forgotten entirely.
But not for ever.
Is this what they mean by second childhood? Approach.ing retirement, I looked back one day and suddenly wondered what had become of the old flute organ? I rang my long-lost friend. It was as if breaking a spell. The Cotton Museum had just reported to him that they could no longer house the instrument unless they owned it, so what should he do? By any standards this was still a white elephant of a musical box but could I really let it go? Surely, all problems are meant to be solved!
Our garden near Cambridge had a small barn which was nearly collapsed but the flint walls and tiled roof had been rebuilt. Cold in winter, cool in summer, it was much like a church, in fact, so why not have an organ in there? It was a real retirement project. Soon it became obvious that the flute organ’s decades in the museum had been far too peaceful. Its whole life had been a cycle of triumphs, doldrums and rescues, and my white elephant was clearly once again not functioning. Would it return to a peaceful slumber once more? Not yet. This lucky machine’s fortunes would turn anew as I was introduced to the firm of Goetze & Gwynn in Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. They were dedicated
Thomas Bazley, the author’s great-grandfather, on his Otto Dicycle in Cirencester.
to the restoration of historic pipe organs and to the manu.facture of new classical organs, including reconstructions of historic organs. My brother worked for the firm but, since a 19th century orchestrion was hardly typical of their normal work, I had never dreamt of involving them. To my surprise, Dominic Gwynn, one of the partners, heard about the project and was obviously intrigued. He contacted me. He had the perfect person, Joe Marsden, who loved complicated mechanisms to set to work on it. So the next thing I saw was Dominic and Joe coaxing my flute organ across our garden to spend a year under their tender care.
Meanwhile, a little history? The organ was built in 1862 in Vöhrenbach in the Black Forest, Germany. This is the region famous for its cuckoo clocks often built by farm.ing families to keep themselves busy during cold winter months. Vöhrenbach became the hub for more and more complex musical devices that appealed to rich customers throughout Europe and America before the advent of gramophones or radio. This one is signed by F. Heine, one of a large family in the orchestrion business, probably Fidel noted in the catalogue of the Black Forest trade exhibition in 1858, where it says, “Fidel Heine from Vöhrenbach – a lovely Viennese flute work with 2 rollers, in which the lovely flute tone is particularly praised.” The family traded with their friend Daniel Imhof (more on him later), who
Pipes on their way from the backyard barn to the restoration shop of Goetz & Gwynn.
also set up a base in London to serve the new market being fuelled by the industrial revolution.
My great-grandfather Thomas Bazley moved down to Gloucestershire in 1867 from Manchester where he had prospered in the cotton industry. He was a true Victorian polymath, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, with wide ranging interests in every new development. He was a keen astronomer and one of his telescopes has just been restored to full use in Southport, Lancashire. He owned a Holtzappfel lathe and produced intricate engine turned works in ivory. He wrote the definitive book on the Geometric Chuck used to produce the complex patterns on bank notes designed to prevent forgery. He gave Glouces.ter Cathedral their new tower clock. He also had a Welte Mignon piano player with wooden keys to fit over a piano keyboard.
The flute organ was procured for him by Daniel Imhof in London. We don’t know the exact date, but we do have a letter from 1964 recalling the “Flute Instrument” in 1897, still with large wooden barrels 30 inches to 36 inches long and wound up with a tool like a car handle. Apparently, it did not stop itself, and there is a note stating, “I never hear the end of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto without remembering the wild dash down the library to put it off lest it spoil the barrel.” I hope that Mendelssohn would
The collection of cassettes featuring classical music that are used to play the flute organ.
have been amused that such wonderful music could be pinned onto a wooden barrel!
The letter says that Thomas Bazley’s son had it “elec.trified,” or converted to a pneumatic system designed by Imhof & Mukle during the early years of the century, The letter writer adds that Imhof & Mukle were later asked to repair the flute organ when it no longer worked but was told “they no longer do that kind of thing – they only go in for wireless etc.” World War I dashed all hopes of repair, and in fact nothing is then heard of the instrument until I discovered it myself in 1963 carefully packed away. The house itself continued in full swing between the wars. One hears of parties and even motor rallies, but I suspect the flute organ, large though it was, simply languished.
Meanwhile, back in the workshop, the flute organ was now receiving proper treatment at last, bearing in mind that every stage was new and experimental. The original maker’s signature was discovered inside some wind trunking but all his work was found to be in generally good condition and superbly made. The Imhof & Mukle mechanism added later was more complex and required much more care and adjustment, including replacement of all leather work.
Naturally, something so different attracted much interest from the usual clientele and led by a happy coincidence to the appearance of Nicholas Frayling, retired Dean of Chichester Cathedral, for the very good reason that he was the great-grandson of Daniel Imhof. A special meeting was arranged in the workshop for him and myself, great-grand.sons of the maker and purchaser respectively, and we marked the completion of the restoration with a grand performance of Wagner’s overture from “Tannhäuser.”
The organ has 150 wooden pipes all with round mouths, commonly termed Viennese Flute and somewhat unusual in normal organ design. These are played from wooden cassettes of manila paper, 200 millimetres wide and extremely tough. Spring-loaded needles pop up through holes punched in the card and trigger a three-stage vacuum pneumatic mechanism. The pipes are arranged in three ranks, or ‘stops,’ of loud, medium and soft, controlled by needles at the edge of the roll to vary the volume, and another needle rewinds the music at the end and switches the motor off.
The original collection was 26 cassettes of classical music, Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, etc. Sadly, during its itinerant history, a few of the rolls became separated and were lost. It would be lovely to trace them.
Their general character is very lively but sweet toned, very redolent of a bygone era before gramophones brought music in the home to a wider public.
And so this chequered history of over 150 years ends on a happy note, for the time being at least. But what of the future? It was always perhaps a rarity, many would say a White Elephant, but nonetheless a fascination. I would love to hear from anyone with interest in or knowledge of anything similar, or with ideas for its future. Obviously it would be sad for the family connection to be broken after so many years, but if this article results in any new connec.tions that would certainly be good.
Editor’s note: Please make contact with Henry in the first instance by emailing: editor@mbsgb.org.uk
Update on Imhof & Mukle Flute Organ
The original article by Henry Bennett featuring the story of his Imhof & Mukle flute organ appeared in Vol 29, No 7 (Autumn 2020) of The Music Box. At the end of the
The finished product safely installed back in the author’s backyard barn.
article there was a request from the author for anyone with relevant knowledge or interest to contact him. Nicholas Simons responded, and it is thanks to him that we have another piece in the history of this instrument.
“I am pleased to see your article in the latest Music Box magazine. I immediately recognised your organ as I had seen it a few times previously. I first saw it in the late 1980s (I think it was around then) when I visited Harold Smith of Saddington Hall. Harold was a very well-known collector in the early days of our society and lived in a ramshackle large house in Leicestershire. He had a large wide-ranging collection which included the famous 97-key Imhof barrel orchestrion, now at the Speyer museum. I became good friends with him up to his death in 2001. Your organ was sitting at the back of his large entrance hall, and Harold told me that he was looking after it for a friend, John Bailey. A few years later it had gone, to be replaced by a Model W Orchestrelle. Harold showed me a couple of music cassettes that he had liberated from the original collection, as payment for looking after the organ. I explained to him that he would probably never be able to sell these, as such were made specif.ically for each organ and were not standard scales. Harold was a law unto himself and it was best to never disagree with him, on pain of never being spoken to again. We continued to be friends with Harold and Nora up to his death in 2001 and Nora’s move to a much more comfortable house locally.
Harold’s collection was sold by Gildings on 28 May 2002 and I have checked my catalogue of the sale. It appears the two cassettes had disappeared before the sale, where to one cannot know.
I saw the organ again on my many visits to the Cotton museum, and was told it was owned by John Bailey. The organ was nonfunctional. I wrote to John expressing an interest to buy, but received no reply.
I am pleased that you have returned the organ to its right.ful place in your family, and have had it restored. I’m sure it will give much pleasure to you and your family for many generations to come.”
To which Henry replied:
“My copy of the magazine arrived yesterday and it is so
impressive! … the front cover is very striking – it teaches one
how powerful a picture can become in the right hands.
Wonderful too that extra glimpse of life in the hands of Harold Smith. My brother now recalls going there with John Bailey, but hadn’t told me, and would not have known about the missing cassettes (of which there are four) …”
Henry’s search for those missing cassettes continues. If anyone reading this thinks they can help locate them, please do get in touch via the editor of The Music Box (who incidentally was introduced to MBSGB by the very same Harold Smith). Henry’s organ is now in its permanent location at home, accompanied by a large portrait of his great-great grandfather, father of the original owner.
Latest on Imhof & Mukle Flute Organ Rolls
From Henry Bennett:
“You will recall the recent article in the Autumn edition of this publication. Documenting the history of this Imhof & Mukle instrument has been the perfect Lockdown Project. Starting with a family letter recalling it playing in 1897, I now have a much clearer idea of its more recent history. A photograph discovered only in December shows me restoring the organ in 1963/4 aged 18, but it needed a more secure plan for the future. Our friend John Bailey was to complete repairs and arrange a long-term loan to the Cotton Collec.tion in Stowmarket. It left our house in about 1978 bound for Ipswich, but found a temporary home with Harold Smith in Saddington near Leicester until Bishop and Sons, Organ Builders, were ready to take it for repair. It was then housed by the Cotton Collection for some twenty years before going to Bishop and Sons and then finally back to me in 2010.
“I was aware of four missing music rolls, but another of the photographs just discovered from the 1960’s shows that the full set (or at least those that survived the house parties of the inter-war period) totalled 29 music rolls, which indicated that somehow seven rolls had gone missing. I am delighted to report that the articles in The Music Box have led directly to the recovery of two of them. These were given to Richard Cole, for safe keeping, by Harold Smith before he died. Real.ising that such rolls were specific to just one instrument, Richard lodged them in the Musical Museum near Kew with a clear note of origin, and it was a very happy moment when he was able to match organ and music rolls and I was able to meet him and return them to the original set.
“(As an aside: I had no knowledge of the Saddington Hall episode or the Musical Museum involvement when I wrote the first article – all I knew was that the organ had been housed in the Cotton Collection sometime during its ‘absence.’ That, however, is no excuse for my jumping to the conclusion that four rolls had disappeared while in its care, and offer my apologies for having suggested this.)
“However, Sherlock Holmes would still be intrigued. Somehow, somewhere, in this short period of residence with Harold Smith, it seems seven rolls became separated from the collection. Of these, two have now been returned, another located, and there is a suggestion that a further two went to Germany. The final two may still be adorning the shelves of people uncertain of their true origin.
“I am a new member of the Society and can well imagine additional happy outcomes from this story. This is such an unusual instrument, being dedicated purely to classical music, and it would be wonderful if the publicity can some.how trace its remaining missing repertoire. Such a happy reunion might even lead to the “Flute Organ” eventually finding a good home. I am now retired and I will not be able to enjoy it and look after it for ever! So, if this jogs any memories or prompts any thoughts, please do not hesitate to contact the Editor.
“It would also be good to meet other people with similar interests, when this is permitted.”
A low-tech tuning lead repair
By Jamie Brewer
I so enjoy reading about the involved restorations documented in Mechan.ical Music. Many of these articles describe repairs that are way beyond the scope of the average hobbyist’s skill set. I have background training in watchmaking, so that greatly helps in problem solving of the mechanical stuff I collect. Unfortunately for me, I never have had the luxury of a high-tech workshop.
Looking back to 120-plus years ago, I see a world with a much different mechanical environment as compared to the electronics age we now live in. Maintaining a Ford Model T in the first quarter of the 20th century is an example of how a person with average skills could keep an internal combus.tion engine operational. Automotive repair tips were even given in popular songs. My favorite “Ford tip” is from “The Little Ford Rambled Right Along,” which advises, “If the power gets thick, just hit it with a brick!” This last verse can be found on the Edison issue of that song as the diamond disc and Blue Amberol cylinders had a longer playback time versus a 78 rpm record.
Well, back to my story. I needed
to do some soundboard repair to my Mermod Frères Sublime Harmonie Piccolo box. The inner workings had been restored a few years earlier and the work included installing new leads for the lower comb. In my collecting experience, those lower combs seem to be prone to what collectors call “lead disease.”
I’ve learned from restorers that when soldering a new block of lead to the comb to replace old corroding tuning weights, it can be a crap shoot for the entire block to fully bond.
When I lifted the works out of the case of my sublime harmonie box, I
A folded piece of copy paper coated with Scotch tape was used as a cradle to hold the lead in place while the epoxy cured.
was not happy to find a stray piece of lead resting on the soundboard instead of connected to the comb tooth where it had once been attached.
In my opinion, replacing a tuning lead should be a simple problem to remedy, even for a hobbyist. The last thing I wanted to do was to remove the comb and ship it away. I also did not want to have to send the entire box out to a restorer for repair to correct what seemed to me like a minor and solvable problem.
I should also mention that for decades I enjoyed the National Public Radio show called “Car Talk,” that was hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi. They will spend eternity known as “Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers.” The brothers spent their airtime giving car maintenance advice and bantering with each other. The Tappet brothers always offered two stock pieces of advice as last resort measures for two common vehicle problems.
The first advice covered the instance of an engine that might be worn out, making noise or burning oil. In this case, they advised adding any oil concoction with “Marvel,” “Mystery,” or “Electric” in the product descrip.tion. For years I carried a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil that I added to my ticking engine that had started making noises after 200,000 miles. The second piece of advice from the Tappet broth.ers related to patching or gluing parts together. They always recommended “J B Weld” as their product of choice. They would always say, “We don’t know what it’s made with. All we know is that it works!”
I could write a book about how J B Weld has bailed me out of some night.mare repairs in many of the jobs I’ve done over the years. The following will be just a few short paragraphs explaining how J B Weld fixed my particular problem with a detached tuning lead.
To begin with, I knew I definitely didn’t want to risk messing up the temper of the comb or melting the tuning lead into a puddle by trying to solder this piece of lead back in place. I theorized that by utilizing a little bit of J B Weld instead I would lose nothing but a small amount of my own time if it didn’t work. The lead would just fall off again and I could then just remove the comb and send it off to a professional restorer to do the job.
Preparing for the task at hand, I figured the easiest way to clamp this repair in place would be to use an improvised cradle. I folded a piece of copy paper from my printer over and over so that it would be just thick enough to make a snug fit between each of the adjoining teeth of the comb. I covered this paper cradle in Scotch tape so any stray epoxy would not adhere to the paper and cause it to stick to the metal. I didn’t want to have to clean excess paper bits off the comb when I was done. I made a few dry runs sliding the lead into place before I mixed the epoxy.
I found it did not require much glue to be applied to both the tooth and tuning lead to achieve my goal. Once the lead was placed into the cradle, it was carefully snugged into place onto the comb tooth.
The hardest part was not touching the repair for 24 hours to allow for a full cure. Once fully cured, I took a thin razor blade and ran it between the tape-covered paper, the tooth, and the tuning lead. Only a tiny bit of glue had oozed onto the tape. Once the paper cradle was separated from the glue, it was carefully removed. Joyfully, I saw that the lead stayed in place.
The excess dried epoxy was shaved off the tooth sides with the razor blade. To be double sure of a good bond, I added a bit more epoxy to the entire perimeter of lead/tooth joint and allowed it to cure for another 24 hours. This was again smoothed over with the thin razor blade.
This low-tech repair was done nearly two years ago and is still hold.ing strong.
Let’s keep the music playing
Have you solved a problem while repairing, restoring or maintaining a mechanical music box?
Cylinder boxes, disc boxes, band organs, orchestrions and nickelodeons each have their own special needs.
Share your restoration or maintenance tips with other mechanical music enthusiasts.
Email editor@mbsi.org, call (253) 228-1634
or mail to: Mechanical Music 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449
In a screen grab from a video posted to YouTube, girls can be seen dancing in the streets of London while an organ grinder provides the music. The video was shot in 1896. Smartphone users can scan the QR code in the corner of the image to be taken directly to the video online.
The Italian Organ Grinder:
His Life Revealed
By Dr. Robert Penna
Over the years, much has been written about grinder instruments played in parks and on the streets in the 19th and early 20th centuries to entertain the masses. Several articles can be found describing the instru.ments and their manufacturers, but that is not the focus here. This article concentrates on the people turning the cranks. The people who played these instruments, called by different names in different localities, sought not only to make a living, but to also provide entertainment. Children and young people often danced to the tunes as the organ grinder turned a handle to activate the mechanism. An example of this behavior can be seen in a video from 1896 showing young girls dancing in the street on Drury Lane, London. Well worth the few minutes it takes to watch, the video can be found at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=xFRdEGPr5zo.
Whether it was a street piano or grinder organ, the results of the music filling the air were often the same. Many people enjoyed, some tolerated and many hated the grinders and the music they played. Perhaps for those who disliked the grinders it was because of the repetition of songs or the squeaking and wheezing of a poorly-maintained instrument. Others may have loathed the music because it was a bit out-of-tune. There may have even been some who disliked the sounds because it attracted crowds of children who would laugh or sing along. Or, perhaps there were other more subtle reasons that this article will attempt to uncover.
Reasons detailed in previous arti.cles by this author and other writers have explained why this type of music disappeared from the streets over time. According to Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume, the disappearance of organ grinders from European streets was in large part due to the early application of national and interna.tional copyright laws. “At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, European publishers of sheet music and holders of copyrights to the most popular operatic tunes of the day banded together to enforce collection of performance duties from any musician playing their property in any venue. When faced with notaries and the hounding of legal representa.tives of the music industry of the time, organ grinders began to disappear.”1 Yet, this cannot be the sole reason as we know that in the case of the steinkjerpositives, Norwegian grinder organs, barrels were pinned with local music gleaned from songs the fiddlers played at weddings and celebratory gatherings and thus were not subject to similar legal issues.2
Another assumption put forth for the demise of organ grinders explains that the rise of the movie industry, radio and the phonograph brought about a decline in the number of organ grinders able to make a living.3 This is a logical theory, yet it does not explain why a vast number of restrictive laws were passed outlawing grinders in cities and towns across the United States and Great Britain. In fact, so many laws were passed in large cities and small towns declaring these auto.matic musical instruments and the practice of grinding them illegal that authorities often encouraged police.men to treat the grinders as beggars or public nuisances.4 The result of these laws and their over-enthusiastic enforcement was that barrel organ grinders were systematically hounded out of existence. In my opinion, this is truly a sad commentary on municipal governments.
Fewer organ grinders to play the instruments meant many instruments and barrels were destroyed or discarded as scrap. In some instances, those barrels contained the only record of the popular music of the day. The loss of a barrel meant there was no longer any trace of the songs recorded on it. Some music of the era was undoubtedly lost.5
But what if there might be another more insidious reason for these attacks on organ grinders? The indi.viduals who practiced this profession were not wealthy nor were they influential. Organ grinders tended to be marginalized members of society. There were some who were amputee veterans from the civil war, who, because of loss of a limb, could no longer do manual labor.6 A small number of African Americans tried to earn a living as organ grinders, but with no formal education and facing heavy racial discrimination not many succeeded in this venture. The vast majority of grinders were recent immigrants. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Italian organ grinders flooded the United States. When cities became rife with husker grinders, these men would move to smaller and smaller towns always hoping to reap the benefits of being a novel entertainment.
Let us look at the lives of these individuals. Organ grinders were a hard-working group of men who either pushed a mechanism on a cart or carried it with a strap across their shoulders, often resting it upon a pole when cranking the instrument. They spent their days standing at one location or tiredly walking the streets for hours. Day by day, usually seven days a week, these men worked through any changes in weather. Cold bitter winds of winter, or a sudden shower, or hot summer days standing in a burning sun, did not deter these individuals. After all, if you and your family relied on small change from passersby or neighborhood children, likely you had to overcome all those hardships in order to survive.
Nowadays photos of these grinders are viewed with nostalgia. Who were these men? Photographs demonstrate that they filled every age group from children to old men. Yet, one wonders how did they get into this line of work? What were their backgrounds? Did they own and service their own instruments? Did they make a decent living? Where did they live? Why were they harassed?
Research shows that from the middle to late 1800s the large numbers of Italian immigrants came to the United States to escape poverty and the harsh conditions which followed the unifi.cation of Italy. True of all immigrants moving to a major city, they sought to live near others of their home country. That is why, even today, there are sections known as Little Italy, Greek Town, Chinatown and others. These special neighborhoods offered stores which carried goods with which the immigrants were familiar. People in their neighborhoods spoke the same language and their specific customs were recognized and not suspected.
A study of this era shows Italian immigrant organ grinders lived in appalling conditions. Low rents encouraged them to move to the poor.est, most rundown neighborhoods. Many old tenement houses in these areas were turned into basic boarding houses and most of these living spaces were squalid and unhygienic with no running water. Trying to survive in these miserable, damp, overcrowded conditions that were rife with disease and often infested with rats, the unwary immigrant could easily became a virtual slave to unscrupulous padrones.7 Padrone is an Italian term that originally meant an employer who provides living arrangements and controls common laborers.
Young Italian children were espe.cially targeted for exploitation. Agents of padrones would recruit youngsters from poor remote villages whose families had no idea they were sending their children into these conditions. The children would accompany the street musicians and beg for pennies. Sometimes, as they grew older, they would crank the barrel organs them.selves. Yet all their earnings had to be handed over to the padrone. If they did not earn enough, they would be
An artist’s sketch depicts the mob that gathered in New Orleans, LA, in 1891 to “avenge” the police chief’s murder. Photo courtesy Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Editorial/UIG via Getty Images
beaten and sent to bed hungry and threatened with expulsion or death. Many suffered in the worst conditions and the mortality rate amongst these youngsters was high.8
Very few of these immigrants were fortunate enough to have their own street organs. The less fortunate wretches would have to hire a weighty contraption for the day, which they then had to transport by carrying it slung over their backs. Each man had his favorite haunt where he would set himself up, manually cranking the organ handle to produce the tunes, and hoping to earn some pennies. For those who couldn’t afford their own street organs and had to rent, rental costs were set at such a rate that many grinders did not produce enough of a profit to escape the life of poverty.9
To make matters so much worse, it was an era where extreme national.ism reigned in the United States. All immigrants faced prejudice. Not only did African Americans face intoler.ance, but so did any who were new
The caption for this photo reads: “An organ grinder. Here is a familiar street scene, no less entertaining and amusing because so often before our doors. It is a jolly Italian family and the donkey, it is pleasant to remark, looks as satisfied and happy as the baby. There is no case here for the attention of the Humane Society, which is more than can be said of all foreign families who come to our shores. The organ, prudently done up in a mackintosh, is one of hose melancholy instruments that drone forth selections from ‘Faust’ and the ‘Barber of Seville’ with a wheezy catch in its strings and a pause when the performer collects a nickel. Sometimes the handle goes around without making any tune until there is a little click inside and away it goes on ‘Wacht Am Rhein’ or the ‘Marseillaise.’ No fine discriminator is our organ grinder. He plays ‘The Dead March’ with a hop-skip-and-a-jump, and his liveliest waltz with slow ponderous measure that would make even the donkey go asleep. While the music of a street piano will perhaps fail to give the liveliest satisfaction to a cultivated ear, it certainly affords great entertainment for that portion of society known as the ‘street gamin,’ whose opportunities for hearing any kind of music are very limited, with a corresponding increase in his capacity for enjoying it. There is still an Old World flavor about the group which has not had time to get rubbed off against our American ways. When we note the expression on the faces, especially that of the little girl in her mother’s arms, there can be no question that the picture was taken directly from life.”
arrivals to this country. Signs appeared in windows cautioning newcomers with “Irish Need Not Apply,” or “We Do Not Serve Germans,” and “No Jobs for Italians.” According to Tony Hernandez on a blog post at the Immigrant Archive Project, “it’s worth noting that this anti-immigrant fervor usually subsides. And more often than not, the newcomer is eventually woven into the fabric of America.”10
But that didn’t happen until after many of the immigrants grinding organs had suffered and died. At the time that this jingoistic attitude perme.ated our society, the Italian immigrant organ grinder was an especially easy target. Working alone outside of the neighborhood in which he lived, he was often victimized by belligerent groups. Gangs and bullies extorted money and most police did not offer protection for the poor immigrant grinder. Lacking language skills to express himself, he was often blamed for crimes he did not commit.
A prime example of how the media of the time supported injustices appeared in an editorial found in Puck Magazine. Originally printed Apr. 15, 1891, it seems to justify attacks on Italian immigrants and Italian organ grinders. The article unsympathet.ically describes the plight of the average organ grinder and his monkey. If the article had stopped at this point, it would have been somewhat informative, even though it mocked the Italian’s language skills with such phrases as “nice-a-man,” “the lady who give-a ten cents,” and “Lady-who-seta da dog on.”
The article goes on to describe the politics between Italy and the United States at the time, claiming that the Italian government had overreacted to a “recent breach of the peace in New Orleans” and had withdrawn their diplomats. In the article, the “breach of the peace” was not described. Perhaps the audience was cognizant about what this “breach of the peace” was, perhaps not. As readers of this article some 130 years later, we likely would not know.
So why was the Italian government so provoked so as to withdraw its diplomat? What was this “breach of the peace” or “unpleasantness” to which this article refers? A quick review of history of the time shows that one month earlier, Italians were the victims of the largest mass lynch.ings in the history of the United States.
According to a story published in the The Washington Post, on Mar. 14, 1891, a crowd of 8,000 assembled on Canal Street in New Orleans and stormed a prison in which some Italians were held. The crowd was reacting to the acquittal of several Italians who had been accused of the murder of the New Orleans police chief. Although they were later found innocent, the anti-Italian sentiment in the city ran high and a sacrifice was demanded.11 The victims were hated simply because they were Italian immigrants. These 11 men were either shot point blank or dragged outside and hanged from lamp posts. According to Ryan Prior of CNN, “Ital.ians were regular victims of nativist hostility in the 1890s, and more than 20 were lynched in episodes around the country throughout the decade.”12
Instead of expressing compassion for the lives of the 11 men unjustly and cruelly murdered or trying to explain the outrage felt by the Italian government, the Washington Post arti.cle simply misrepresents the number of men killed and attacks the Italian government for recalling its minister. Think about how we, as Americans, feel today when our innocent civilians are attacked in foreign lands and their governments do little or nothing to bring the criminals to justice? How must those Italian immigrant organ grinders felt?
Most literature of the time demon.ized immigrants, especially Italian organ grinders. One example is an ordinary melodrama for the stage from the early 1900s entitled “The Mummy and the Hummingbird.” It describes the villain as a base Italian organ grinder, even though his background demonstrates that he is a supposedly intelligent author who has had to flee his homeland.13
Many more examples of this type of negativity can be found in political cartoons of the day. Attached to this article are several examples of the prejudice faced by immigrant Italian organ grinders gleaned from publi.cations of the time. Often appearing in weekly magazines, the Brother Jonathan cartoon character was used to represent the United States before the Uncle Sam caricature was created. In the attached cartoon, he is advising the Italian organ grinder to send his instrument referred to as a squeak machine to P.T. Barnum’s circus, take a weapon, and go back to Italy.
One drawing shows what an illus.trator drew as a typical Italian organ grinder, revealing him to look like the basest criminal. The drawing was sure to give small children nightmares. Another cartoon of the day calls the Italian organ grinder a “dago” which is an extremely disparaging and contemptuous term used to refer to a person of Italian origin.
A photo appearing in a local news.paper of the day shows an apparently well cared for grinder organ on a donkey-pulled cart with an Italian family. In comparison to an average street husker, this is an unbelievably prosperous grinder. The photo is likely staged, but the caption refers to the mechanism as “one of those melancholy instruments that drones forth selections … with a wheezy catch. … No fine discriminator is our organ grinder.” The caption goes on to state that the music will fail to give the cultivated listener satisfaction. The article does add, however, “it certainly affords great entertainment for that portion of society familiarly known as the ‘street gamins.’” Street gamins are defined as homeless children left to wander the neighborhood, or street urchins. So, according to this piece, only the uneducated homeless can enjoy the sounds of a cranked instru.ment played by this Italian family.
To many, the organ grinders brought joy and pleasure from their humdrum existences and were a wonderful part of their lives. They never knew of the suffering often borne by many of these men. Besides living in deplorable conditions, faced with prejudice and often undisguised hatred, their days consisted of push.ing or carrying a heavy instrument in all sorts of weather. Imagine standing continuously for long hours and monotonously turning a crank to hear the same few songs day after day. This assuredly took not only strength, but patience. Let us never forget what these individuals endured as they played their wonderful instruments that we enjoy to this day.
A poem (see Page 40) which appeared in an 1873 issue of Harp.er’s New Monthly Magazine shows the human cost of an organ grinder. It speculates on the history of the elderly organ grinder’s past and what he thinks as he repetitiously grinds his instrument.14
Footnotes
1.
Penna, Robert. “Organ Grinders, the Mayor and Cartoons of the 1930’s,” Mechanical Music, Music Box Society International, Volume 64, No. 1, January/February 2018, page 36
2.
Steinkjerpositiv. http://www.nostalgeek.no/barrel.htm
3.
Penna, Robert. “Cartoon Crankers,” Mechanical Music, Music Box Society International, Volume 65, No. 4, July/August 2019, page 38
4.
Penna, Robert. “Barrel Organs and Monkey Performers in Our Nation’s Capital,” Carousel Organ, Carousel Organ Association of America, Issue #83, April 2020, page 4.
5.
Ibid. page 4
6.
Penna, Robert. “Barrel Organs and the Disabled Civil War Veteran,” Mechanical Music, Music Box Society International, Volume 64, No. 3, May/June 2018, page 28
7.
Penna, Robert. “Joy and Suffering: The Organ Grinders of London and Manchester,” The Music Box, Musical Box Society of Great Brit.ain, Volume 29 No. 7, Autumn 2020, page 268.
8.
Ibid. page 268
9.
Ibid. page 271
10.
“A Brief History of Anti-Immigrant Propaganda.” Immigrant Archive Project. https://immigrantarchiveproject.org/brief-history-anti-immi.grant-propaganda/
11.
Italian-American One Voice Coalition. 2018. http://www.iaovc.org/lynching-of-italians/
12.
Prior, Ryan. CNN. Published 3:12 PM (EDT) Monday, April 1, 2019.
13.
Penna, Robert. “The Mummy, the Hummingbird, and the Italian Organ Grinder, Mechanical Music, Musical Box Society International, volume 63, No. 5, September/October 2017.
14.
Zucchi, John E. The Little Slaves of the Harp. Buffalo, NY: McGill’s-Queens University Press 1992.
An organ-grinder, meagre and sorrowful, Stops in the sun in the street below; The ragged street children come trooping about him,
Crowding and eager and glad, I know, Their bright eyes peering through tangled tresses With childish wonder and happy trust:
Even the boys stare, quiet a moment, Scraping their toes through the tawney dust.
But the organ-grinder is bent and weary; Nothing is new to him under the sun; The tinkling of notes of the old, old music Mean scanty crusts when the day is done. A waltz may come, or an Ave Maria; The children may listen or run away; The organ-grinder is old and weary, And he turns this handle the livelong day.
What is he thinking, our tired brother? What do these sorrowful gray eyes see? Vacantly gazing – at nothing about him – Is he looking in faces that used to be? Is he thinking of old, old times and people, Of days when the sun in truth was bright, When the sweet winds blew to him perfumed fancies, And sunset castles rose fair in his sight?
Does he hear, instead of the old, old music His brown, stiff fingers are grinding out, The dear wife’s laugh in the pleasant twilight, And the baby’s step and tiny shout? Does he feel the pressure of loving fingers .Deadly chill when he touched them last! .Biding the troubled dream of the present In the gracious glow from the real past?
Our worn-out brother! He is only weary; no fairy dreams are kissing his eyes; His life is sordid and narrow and sorrowful; The pennies fall rarely – for this he sighs No lovely phantoms are floating about him; No echoes are sounding within his breast From the voice divine of that love supernal Which shall surely somewhere give him rest. And the bruised spirit is mate with the body; He will hear with a stare that God is good. Silently add to the store of his pennies, And brighten his desolate solitude. Stifle the Pharisee pity that rises! Who links the merciless chain of fate? Through what dim cycles slow gather its atoms? In what fine junctions – while we wait?
Poem and cartoon from The Little Slaves of the Harp. Reprinted from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1873.
The SEGA Grand Pianist
The following article was first published in German by Das Mechanische Musikinstrument (No. 141, August 2021) the magazine of the German Association for Self-playing Mechan.ical Instruments.
By Uwe Gernert
Original intro: In May 2021 I found some new entries in Jody and Robbie’s Mechanical Music Digest (MMD) about a piece of technology not familiar to me before, called the SEGA Grand Pianist, a toy piano in 1/6 scale. It is a fully electronic device with some features worthy enough to be pointed out in a collector’s magazine, which also counts as an audience a group of people who are interested in MIDI technology.
SEGA and SEGA Toys
To warm up, I would like to talk a little about the history of the SEGA Corporation. The company was founded in 1940 in Honolulu, HI, by Americans Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg and James Humpert. It was then called Standard Games and it produced coin-operated amusement machines, including slot machines for military bases. In 1946 the name was changed to SErvice GAmes, shortened in marketing materials to SEGA, as it continued to focus selling its products mainly on military bases. The U.S. outlawed slot machines in its territories around 1952 and SEGA could foresee a decline in sales, so the founders moved their business to Tokyo in 1951. The name of the company was changed to SErvice GAmes of Japan. The main business of SEGA was still the import of coin-op.erated automatons for American forces stationed in Japan at the time. In 1965 SEGA fused with Rosen Enter.prises, also a Tokyo-based business. Rosen Enterprises imported all sorts of electromechanical devices ranging from photobooths to mechanical playing machines found in arcades. In 1966 SEGA developed a submarine simulator called “Periscope” which became a worldwide export success and brought the company a world.wide reputation. The company began to develop between eight and 10 new arcade games per year.
In 1969, Rosen Enterprises and other shareholders decided to sell SEGA to Gulf & Western Industry Inc., a company engaged in making cars, clothing, sugar and a lot of other prod.ucts. When SEGA debuted its arcade game titled “Heavyweight Champ,” it was the first commercially successful Japanese video game. The company’s name continues to be associated with profitable products in video games and game consoles. In 1982, worldwide sales reached $214 million. The following decades saw SEGA experience many changes because of new competitors like Atari, Sony and Nintendo. Despite some mergers and takeovers, technological and commercial successes like the 16-bit game console called Mega Drive in the 1990s, reestablished the company in international markets.
Yonezawa Toys, which was founded in the 1950s in Tokyo, was the biggest producer of toys in Japan after WWII. They specialized in the 1970s in the production of thousands of different battery-driven mechanical toys. In the 1980s they began producing radio-controlled toys. In 1991 that company was bought by SEGA and the new trademark of the company was Sega-Yonezawa. In April 1998 the name of the founder was deleted from the company’s name and a new trade.mark, SEGA Toys, was established.
Further development saw the parent company SEGA as a supplier of software for the consoles of former competitors, for which games and simulations were and are still developed. On Sept. 9, 2003, SEGA announced to the press a new corpo.rate strategy of entering into more partnerships, including with Chunsoft, Vivarium, and THQ, for whom SEGA distributed games in Japan. The corpo.rate strategy included supporting next generation consoles such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii with new video game software. SEGA also bought up several animation and game development studios in the 2000s and later, thus ensuring success in that market segment.
On Dec. 8, 2003, Sammy, one of Japan’s largest slot machine manufac.turers, bought 22.4 percent of SEGA’s stock and with that buy became the largest shareholder of the company after a failed attempt to merge with SEGA in the same year. On May 18, 2004, Sammy and SEGA declared they would fully merge in October to form a joint group called “Sega Sammy Holdings.” After this merger, SEGA Toys was also reorganized, becoming a division of SEGA entertainment. Sega Toys, however, continued to market itself completely independently of the parent company, even though there was cooperation between the two.
The Grand Pianist
As stated in the short introduction, the SEGA Grand Pianist came to my attention due to some short articles in MMD in May 2021. After watching videos at some of the links provided on YouTube, I knew I must have one of these machines and I began to search the web to find one for sale. I found some offered on eBay by international sellers from Japan who wanted $200 or so for them. Some of the offers from U.S. sellers were a lot more expensive so I decided to buy from a Japanese seller for the first time ever. I must say, I was not disappointed. The seller’s communication was excellent, and the instrument was sent on its way to me extremely fast.
Most Japanese sellers on eBay ship their goods free via FedEx worldwide. This is a very convenient way to obtain goods in Europe. FedEx handles all that customs stuff and sends you a bill for the costs about 14 days after deliv.ery. For those who are keen on getting original packaging and the manual (only available in Japanese) for the toy piano, you will have to pay a higher price and only likely deal with sellers from Japan. I wasn’t worried about missing those pieces because I was mainly interested in the completeness and condition of the instrument.
The SEGA Grand Pianist was produced in a white version, but they are rarely offered for sale nowadays and they are more expensive. I would say you might have to add $500 or more to the cost compared to a black version, but if white better fits with your furniture, I could see you saying, “so what?” There are also some editions, I call them “Cinderella-Edi.tions,” that were produced for an even smaller buyer’s market. Mostly, these were white instruments that had printings on the piano’s cover. In my opinion, these would only impress some Japanese or American buyers who might buy the instrument for a child’s room.
The SEGA Grand Pianist is a replica of an 88-key YAMAHA Grand piano. I think it is one of the famous YAMA-HA-series Type C2 pianos, which was also offered as a “Disklavier.” In the display panel of the toy, you might recognize the “Deja-vus.” The Deja.vus is a concept of sorting the files of different genres of music into differ.ent folders labeled A through F. The instrument in its 1/6 scale is practically identical to a reproduced YAMAHA, right down to the music holder. It was originally offered to the public in Japan in the first quarter of 2007.
The instrument’s 88 keys (white ones measuring 4 millimeters while black ones measure 3 millimeters in width) are actuated by small electro solenoids which will be moved according to the song being played. In manual mode the piano keys can be actuated by hand (perhaps even better with a matchstick). The instrument comes with 100 pieces of different music pre-programmed, ranging from classic to popular music, pop classics and of course “Happy Birthday” and “Silent Night.”
The repertoire was chosen by an internationally known Japanese composer and violinist named Taro Hakase. You may recognize his name, as he accompanied Celine Dion from the 1990s on her world tours as a violinist. The playlist can be extended by inserting an SD card into the inte.grated card reader slot. The machine is able to read cards up to a capacity of 2 GB. The dimensions of the piano are 250 millimeters wide, 180 milli.meters high and 330 millimeters long. The weight is about 3.6 kilograms. The Japanese obviously thought about a worldwide distribution for the instrument. The AC/DC adapter is a universal part which covers an AC input from 100 volts (at 100 volts the Japanese current is the worldwide lowest) to 240 volts. When buying an instrument from Japan you should always confirm that the adapter is original and not changed. Even the difference between 100 volts AC and the American voltage of 110/120 volts AC can do irreparable damage to the adapter and the instrument. The power plug on the adapter is NEMA-standard (National Electrical Manufacturers Association), so you don’t even need an adapter.
It is not hard to understand why this instrument found no interna.tional market. SEGA trademarked the instrument in the U.S. but never came up with any kind of marketing campaign to attract people to this product. Another problem was the price tag, which was $400. Delivery could be made only directly from Japan. Robbie Rhodes, in MMD of May 15, 2007, found a “Buy it now price” of $637 on eBay, which was far too much to make this product an economical success abroad.
It also wasn’t helpful at all that the instruction manual and display on the instrument were available only in Japanese. To completely detail all the failures of the marketing strategy for this piano, it would take an expert on the SEGA firm’s history who has a better knowledge of the Japanese language than me. Also regarding the level of commercial success, I only can speculate since I couldn’t obtain any information about how many of these pianos were produced versus how many were sold.
As a children’s toy, the SEGA Grand Pianist was not only too expensive, but also certainly not suitable for youngsters. Operating the instrument requires a high level of technical skill and there are simply too many parts that can break when it is used as a toy. It was also unsuitable for the broader Japanese population, partly because of a lack of living space in Japanese cities, but also contributing to the problem was the hefty price of 47,000 yen. Americans might call something like the SEGA Grand Pianist an “exec.utive desk toy.” As a collector’s item, there probably isn’t much money to be made with it either. I personally can’t see any real target group for marketing this instrument to. It seems to me that 14-year-olds to 16-year-olds certainly had (and still have) other needs greater than a miniature piano.
The instrument’s speaker is another weak point. The electromechanics that operate the keys are loud, only
When turning the piano on, you may see the keys move as part of a testing program.
drowned out when playing songs at full volume but then the quality of the sound isn’t great either. I esti.mated it at a maximum of 2.5 watts on the built-in speaker. According to the manufacturer, it can produce 3 watts of power. You can remedy this shortfall if you use the output jack available on the instrument and employ an external speaker option. I would advise you to look for devices made around the same time as this instrument. For example, you might try the speaker cube NX-A01 that was offered by YAMAHA about that time. Currently on the second-hand market you won’t find any of these speakers in black, only white are available. As collectors, however, we all know that hope always dies last! Maybe one day I’ll find a way to acquire a white version of the SEGA Grand Pianist, then buy a YAMAHA speaker in white also for less than $100. Of course, a Bluetooth TX-adapter together with a corresponding speaker can also offer an alternative to this collector’s dream combination. This Bluetooth option works wirelessly and can also be purchased for less than $100. I thought I might be able to turn off the key action in the original instrument to reduce the noise they make, but it turns out this would require software and possibly hardware hacks that not easily done unless you are an expert computer builder and programmer. With the external speaker attached, however, it is possible to obtain 6 to 10 watts of speaker volume which is quite suitable to overcome the back.ground noises produced by the piano.
When it comes to expanding the playlist for the piano, I have already mentioned that you can use a 2 GB SD card. You can even find some for sale that come with ready-recorded music, but even on eBay these cards are rarely available. Plus, sellers of these cards charge quite high prices and it is even more disappointing when you realize these cards only make a small number of additional tracks available.
There is a bit of software, called Musicbox, from a third-party-pro.ducer that is available and can be
Two SEGA Grand Pianists on top of a Steck Aeolian Pianola in the author’s home.
downloaded from the internet making it possible for you to convert MIDI-files to the format needed to save them on SD cards that are compatible with the toy piano. (Filenames after conversion end with *.FEM)
I was astonished that this software that dates back to 2010 (the version is 1.0.0.1, and is copyrighted in 2004) doesn’t have any problems running on Windows 10.
Don’t listen if somebody tells you to just change a filename extension from *.MID to *.FEM This will not work. Make all changes to your MIDI files with a program designed to work with those types of files before running the conversion through the Musicbox software. If you simply try to edit a MIDI file with a standard code-editor it will result in a corruption of that MIDI file.
Use of the Musicbox software is quite simple even if the export for the toy piano is hidden in a submenu called “List” as a button labeled
The SEGA Grand Pianist comes with a very simple menu structure. You can only choose between playing from media or manual playing. Starting up the piano with an SD card in the slot will provide you with a submenu. The first choice is playing from media. You may choose between SD and the onboard music. The first choice is to play from SD and you don’t even have to know Japanese because the term SD can be clearly identified in the menu.
Press the enter key in the menu three times and the music from the external SD card will start. Quality and range will depend on the MIDIs you use. It does seem, however, that there are many possibilities when playing around with MIDIs using the SEGA Grand Pianist since there are thousands of files available to convert.
Some YouTube videos assert that the toy piano’s keys are actuated at random while playing from self-made SD cards. This tells me that most of the makers of these videos had no knowledge that the Musicbox conver.sion software exists. In my opinion, the piano’s keys are actuated in total congruence with the notes played from the SD card. For those who are curious about the inner workings of the piano, I have included a picture of the inside. If something were to go wrong in there, I’m quite sure it would be easier to buy a new toy than to repair it. Or, maybe you have as much technical insight as the Japanese friend from the internet who sent me the picture that appears on Page 45.
Seeking your stories for ….
Did you once spend time finding the perfect musical
The Hunt
antique to round out your collection? What was it? How did you find it? Was it in ruins, or in perfect condition?
Was there a time you randomly ran across a unique instrument then found a way to acquire it and restore it so that you might display it and tell the story to all who of others. visit your home? We look forward to hearing
Answer these questions and you will have the perfect from you. story for “The Hunt” column in Mechanical Music.
Every mechanical music instrument has a story Email your story to editor Russell Kasselman at behind it and the readers of Mechanical Music love to editor@mbsi.org or mail a copy to: read them all.
Editing help is available if you have a story, but you are MBSI Editorial Offices not sure how to organize it or present it. The important 130 Coral Court thing is to get it down and pass it on for the enjoyment Pismo Beach, CA 93449
A fortunate find
The story of how a Crown Style 16 20.-inch upright disc music box came into my collection
One of the original discs purchased by the author. Note that the label spells Pittsburg without an “h.”
By Harold Wade
Crown 20.-inch disc music box to play Pa.” At the time these discs were
them on since I knew that the discs produced, Pittsburg (without the “h”)
In 2018, sometime in Spring, I would play perfectly on my Olympia was the correct spelling of the name unexpectedly found and bought four 20.-inch (serial No. 11037) table of the city until it was changed on original Crown 20.-inch discs at a model music box. I was happy with Jul. 11, 1911. It would be interesting Stanton’s Auctioneers auction in Hast-that. As mentioned, all the discs are in to hear from other Crown disc music ing, MI. They were in perfect condition excellent condition and each disc has box owners whether their discs have and, in my opinion, reasonably priced. printed on it the words “Crown Music the “h” or no “h” on their Crown disc I never worried that I didn’t have Box–H. Kleber and Bro. Co–Pittsburg, labels.
This image shows the repaired soundboard. Note, also, the small, white instruction label just below the bedplate.
Disc numbers, song titles and composers from the four discs I purchased are listed at top of Page 49.
A year or so later, while searching eBay, I found a music box described as a Regina upright disc music box, but I could tell from the pictures that it looked like an F. G. Otto 20.-inch disc music box. When I called the seller, Dennis Warren from Albany, NY, he told me that an antique music box dealer in New York state told him it was not a Regina but an F. G. Otto disc music box. I requested pictures of the music box and the discs. I was pretty sure it was a Crown 20.-inch disc music box that was manufactured by F. G. Otto and Sons in Jersey City, NJ. The pictures arrived and all nine discs had Crown Music Box labels on them. This convinced me it was worth looking at this item with some
No. Song Title
5065 Marching Through Georgia,
Song 1865
5070 Listen to the Mocking Bird,
March, (Horen Sie den Spottischen Vogel) 1856
Good
5128 Tis the Last Rose of Sum.
mer, from Martha, (Letzte
Rose, Lied) 1847
5281 Il Trovatore, Anvil Chorus
Music from Act 2 Scene 1
1853
Music Box Company in Randolph, VT.
“Pat. May 20, 1902 No: 700550.” The simply, Music Box. It was filed Dec.
boxes of every size
same label on almost all F.
short bedplate installations. The base
The author’s restored Crown 201/2-inch disc music box.
boxes with original base cabinets. MBSI members Mike Perry, who owns a Criterion serial No. 6373 in Ohio, and Alvin Zamba, who owns a Criterion serial No. 8506 in Pennsylvania, have the same cabinet for their machines.
The sole distributor of Crown disc music boxes made by F. G. Otto was Henry Kleber and Brothers, originally located at 1st 501 Wood Street and then at 221-223 Fifth Avenue in Pittsburg, PA, between 1903 and 1904. Kleber, born in Darmstadt, Germany, was an active participant in the city’s musical affairs for years. He had a music store in Pittsburgh for many years selling Knabe, Henry F Miller, Crown Orches.tra, Straube and Opera Pianos, plus many other musical items including Imperial Symphonion disc music boxes, Washington Mandolins, guitars, banjos, zithers and Peerless Piano Players. An interesting side note, I own an Imperial Symphonion 20-inch disc music box with a label inside reading, “H. Kleber & Bro. 221-223 Fifth Ave. Pittsburg—Everything in the music line– Baldwin & Gleason Company, N.Y.” I purchased that box in Pittsburgh some years ago.
The Crown disc music boxes were exact copies of Criterion or Olym.pia or Euphonia music boxes, and possibly even the same as Sterling music boxes though I’ve never seen one of those. I found that the discs are interchangeable since they all have a 3/8-inch diameter center hole and edge drive. The Crown 20.-inch disc numbers (5XXX) are the same numbers as Criterion and Olympia 20.-inch disc boxes. This information comes from an article by Al Choffnes printed in the MBSI journal that is dated Winter 1983 (Vol. 29, No. 3).
The Crown music boxes I’ve seen are plain with no markings. MBSI member Bob Yates has a small Crown disc music box, size 8.-inches with 44 teeth, that has 16 (2XXX) discs. Also Bob’s music box has a label reading “Number 1,” which I believe is the model (looking at Q. David Bowers’ “Encyclopedia of Disc Music Boxes” on page 299). Bob purchased his Crown disc music box from an antique dealer in Pittsburgh who bought the Henry Kleber store when it went out of business some 40 years ago. MBSI member Colson Conn had a 14-inch or 15.-inch Crown disc music box that he bought on eBay from a small town just east of Pittsburgh some years back. Also, the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ, has on display a Crown 15.-inch disc music box that is on loan from Jane A. George and is pictured in Mechanical Music (Vol. 63, No. 3, May/June 2017, Page 20). I think it would be interesting to know how this Crown 20.-inch disc music box made its way to upstate New York from Pittsburgh, PA.
Ron Connolly, at the Porter Music Box Company, started restoring my Crown music box on Sept. 28, 2020. Ron said the combs were not badly worn and cleaned up nicely. He reported that the number one star wheel on the bass end of the combs was badly worn because the first bass teeth in both the upper and lower comb were too heavy. He added that the spring barrel and drive spring both contained dried-up grease from more than 116 years of use, but they also cleaned up nicely. The drive gear on the shaft was pinned over, instead of using a set screw, to hold it to the shaft, Ron said. He drilled it out and corrected it. Next, he noted that the speed lever and assembly for
The front and back side of a Liberty V nickel, found in the base cabinet of the author’s Crown disc box during restoration.
controlling disc speed was missing, so he made a copy using Jim Farr’s Criterion 15.-inch disc music box which happened to be in Porter’s shop for restoration at the same time. Thank you Jim. The sound board in my Crown music box had shrunken slightly so it was moved over slightly and a Sitka spruce piece was glued in to fill the space and prevent rattles, then sanded to a smooth surface and stained to color match the original. The back board of the music box had shrunken also so the panels were loose causing a rattle. The back panel was taken apart, cleaned up and glued back together to solve this problem. The restoration of my music box was completed in early 2021. The box was delivered to Alvin Zamba’s residence on May 11, 2021. Alvin made a copy of the beautiful gallery from his Criterion 20.-inch box to replace the missing gallery on mine. This made the music box look complete.
Another interesting side note is that Ron found a 1900 Liberty V Nickel in the base cabinet of my music box. It was dirty, but in perfect condition. My guess is that the coin had been laying in the bottom of the base cabinet for more than 110 years.
No. Song Title Composer
5038 Adeste Fideles Portuguese Chapel Hymn (O Come, All Ye Faithful) 1743 Tr. J. R. Beste
5048 The Palms, Scared Song 1872 Jean-Baptiste Faure
5070 Listen to The Mocking Bird, March, (Horen Sie den Spottischen Vogel) 1856 Good Alice Hawthorne
5088 The Holy City, Sacred Song 1892 Stephen Adams
5141 Jesus, Lover of My Soul, Hymn 1862 Joseph P Holbrook
5251 Wizard of the Nile, Star Light, Star Bright Waltz, Song Burlesque Operetta 1895 Victor Herbert
5281 Il Trovatore, Anvil Chorus Music from Act 2 Scene 1 1853 Excellent Giuseppe Verdi
5450 Blaze Away, March and Two Step 1901 Abraham Abe Holzmann
5510 Bedelia Song (A Irish Serenade),(I Want to Steal Ye, Bedelia, I Love You So) 1903 Jean Schwartz & William Jerome
On this page is a table showing the nine discs that came with my Crown 20.-inch disc music box.
It has been an enjoyable journey acquiring this unusual disc music box, having it restored and now enjoying the beautiful music which it can produce. I must thank Dwight Porter and Ron Connolly once again for the excellent restoration. Also, many thanks to Alvin Zamba for the beauti.ful gallery on the top of the music box that he made. Thanks also go to Mary Zamba for taking some photos and assisting with this article.
WE WANT YOUR STORY!
Every mechanical musical instrument has a tale to tell. Share the history of people who owned your instrument before you, or the story of its restoration, or just what makes it an interesting piece. Send stories via email to editor@mbsi.org or mail your story to Iron Dog Media, 130 Coral Court, Pismo Beach, CA 93449
Interesting Tidbits
H.O. Studley, Veteran Piano Maker, at His Bench in the Poole Factory.
The small article accompanying this photo, found in the March 30, 1890, issue of The Music Trade Review, reads:
“In the accompanying picture, taken in the Poole Piano Co.’s factory, Boston, the portrait of H.O. Studley, who is one of the trade’s most interesting characters, will be noted. Mr. Studley has been a piano man for forty-six years, and has been with the Poole Piano Co. for over twenty, and is still in active harness with this well-known Boston piano manufacturing institution. The tool set also shown in this picture represents the collection of a lifetime, and the handsome case as well as a number of the tools were made by Mr. Studley, who is a veteran of the Civil War, and a staunch American.”
Several articles are available online providing more detail about the man and his tool chest, which is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution. Read more at:
•
19th-Century Tool Box Is Meticulously Designed to Hold 300 Tools
•
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_O._Studley
•
http://ggober.com/shop/documents/FW_Stud.ley_Smithsonian.pdf
•
https://lostartpress.com/collections/books/products/ virtuoso
Margie Epstein — 1935-2021
By Paul Senger
I am sad to announce the passing
of Margery “Margie” Epstein on Jun.
2, 2021, at the age of 85 after a long
illness. She was born in Trenton, NJ,
and was a resident of Silver Spring,
MD, for more than 40 years. After
raising three children, she started
a successful tutoring business that
she ran for nearly 20 years. She was
predeceased by her husband of 62
years, Seymour “Sy” Epstein, in 2018.
Together they were able to pursue
many passions including travel,
game collection and appreciation for
antique music boxes. They also loved
to go to musical shows including
the annual John Philip Sousa tribute
concerts by the Marine Band, and live
performances at local venues. She
loved to talk to the musicians and
performers after shows. Margie was
also enthusiastic in her participation
in the League of Women Voters. Sy
and Margie had been members of the
National Capital Chapter for over 15
years and enthusiastic contributors
to our chapter including our Annual daughter, Sharon Ross (Greg); flowers, donations can be made to the
Convention in 2011. grandchildren, Ericka and Neil, sister, League of Women Voters, American Margie will be greatly missed. Our Barbara Waksler; and brother, Roger Cancer Society and American Heart
condolences go out to the family. Pitasky. Association. She is survived by sons, Bruce A memorial service was held Read more at www.sagelbloomfield.
(Rachael) and Jeff (Virginia); Jul.j 11 in Rockville, MD. In lieu of com/obituary/Margery-Epstein
Lelland Fletcher — 1926-2021
The Southern California Chapter is collector who attended many chapter sorry to have to announce that our meetings as well as national mechan.dear friend, Lelland Fletcher, passed ical musical enthusiast meetings in away on Jul. 21, 2021, at a care center. the U.S., Japan and Europe. He will be
July 28 would have been his 95th sorely missed. birthday. “Fletcher” was a gentle man A memorial service in San Diego, and a long-term MBSI member and CA, was held Aug. 6.
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A Lasting Legacy
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Aug. 31 – Sept. 5, 2022
72nd Annual Meeting of the Musical Box Society International & 58th Annual Meeting of the
and the MBSI Golden Gate Chapter Location: San Mateo Marriott San Francisco Airport in San Mateo, California
Stanton’s Auctioneers,
Vermontville, MI 49096 Phone: (517) 726-0181 Michael C. Bleisch Fax: (517) 726-0060 (517) 231-0868 cellular E-mail: stantonsauctions@sbcglobal.net E-mail – mcbleisch@gmail.com Website: www.stantons-auctions.com
Music Box Company, Inc.
We restore Swiss cylinder and disc music boxes.
•
Cylinders are repinned if necessary and all worn parts are rebuilt to original specifications or better.
•
Combs are repaired and tuned. Nickel plated parts are replated as needed.
Trust your prized music box to the finest quality restoration available. We have been accused of over restoring! Better over than under I say!
We will pick up your music box anywhere east of the Mississippi River, and transport it to our shop in Randolph, Vermont, where it will be stored in a climate-controlled area until it’s finished and returned.
We have a complete machine shop where we build Porter Music Boxes, more than 3,000 so far. We are unique in the industry in that we are capable of manufacturing any part needed to restore any music box.
See our website, www.PorterMusicBox.com, to read letters of recommendation and browse a selection of the finest disc boxes currently being manufactured anywhere in the world. We have twin disc models, single disc models with 121/4” or15 1/
“ discs, and table models with beautiful cabinets created for us in Italy. Also we can
occasions.
P.O Box 424 Randolph, VT 05060
support.
Call (802) 728-9694 or email maryP@portermusicbox.com
The Musical Box Society of Great Britain announces the publication of two new books Published in September 2018
100pp Hard Back ISO A4 format [8.27” . 11.70”; Profusely illustrated in
Supplement to
colour throughout with Additional Illustrations of Models, 89 Additional Lid The Disc Musical Box Pictures Additions to Lists of Models, Patents, Tune Lists & Serial Numbers; Combined Index of Images in the original book and its Supplement.
Compiled and Edited by Kevin McElhone Originally published in 2012 and still available The Disc Musical Box
ISBN 978-0-9557869-6-9
is a compendium of information about Disc Musical Boxes, their Makers and their Music; profusely illustrated in colour throughout with Illustrations of each Disk Musical Box Model, and with Catalogue Scans, Lists of Models, Patents & Tune Lists.
Supplement to
Compiled and Edited by Kevin McElhone
100pp Hard Back ISO A4 format [8.27” . 11.70”; Profusely illustrated in
Patents, Tune Lists & Tuning Scales; A New Section on Trade Cards; Combined Index of Images in the original book and its Supplement.
The Organette Book is a compendium of information about Organettes, their Makers and their Music. Originally published in 2000 but now out of print although second-hand copies are occasionally available in online auctions.
************************************************************************************************************************ For all MBSGB Publications, please refer to the Musical Box Society of Great Britain website for further details including latest availability, discounted prices and information on how to order. -www.mbsgb.org.uk
MECHANICAL MUSIC
Journal of the Musical Box Society International
MECHANICAL MUSIC
Journal of the Musical Box Society International Devoted to All Automatic Musical Instruments
Volume 63, No. 3 May/June 2017
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It is to be hereby understood that the placing of advertisements by members of the Society in this publication does not constitute nor shall be deemed to constitute any endorsement or approval of the busi.ness practices of advertisers. The Musical Box Society International accepts no liability in connection with any business dealings between members and such advertisers.
It is to be further understood that members are to rely on their own investigation and opinion regarding the reputation and integrity of advertisers in conducting such busi.ness dealings with said advertisers.
variety of antique musical boxes, discs, orphan cylinders, reproducing piano rolls & out of print books about mechanical music. BILL WINEBURGH 973-927-0484 Web: antiquemusicbox.us
THE GOLDEN AGE of AUTOMATIC MUSI.CAL INSTRUMENTS By ART REBLITZ. Award-winning classic that brings historical, musical, and technical information to life with hundreds of large, vivid color photos. We guarantee you’ll find it to be one of the most interesting, inspiring, informative books you have in your library–or your money back. Everyone has been delighted, and some readers have ordered several copies. Get your copy today for $99 plus S/H. MECHANI.CAL MUSIC PRESS-M, 70 Wild Ammonoosuc Rd., Woodsville, NH 03785. (603) 747-2636.
http://www.mechanicalmusicpress.com
installed. Plays as it should. New top repro.duced. Have receipts for work and parts. $2,100.00. Call JON GULBRANDSON, at (763) 923 5748
MILLS VIOLANO #3931 purchased from Mills Novelty Co. in 2003. 100-point restoration done by the most well-known and respected Violano technician in the country. Flawless brown mahogany case. Instrument plays and sounds great. It has been serviced regularly. Plays from collection of 12 recut rolls or MIDI system with over 300 songs on hard drive. Retired, moving, need to sell. Will accept any reasonable offer. Contact RON SCHULTZ, at rpsdds@hvc.rr.com or (845) 386-2773
MARVELS OF MECHANICAL MUSIC -MBSI Video. Fascinating and beautifully-made film which explains the origins of automatic
SUBMIT ADS TO:
MBSI Ads 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449 (253) 228-1634 Email: editor@mbsi.org
musical instruments, how they are collected and preserved today, and their historic importance, MBSI members and collections are featured. $20 USD. Free shipping in the continental U.S. Additional postage charges apply for other locations. Purchase now at www.mbsi.org
SEEKING PLANS or measurement for a Polyphon lower cabinet for 19.5 size disc. Contact ROD MOORE, rodcrna4u@gmail. com or (336) 337-1165 North Carolina
REPRODUCTION POLYPHON discs; Cata.logs available for 19 5/8”, 22 1/8”, and 24 1/2”. DAVID CORKRUM 5826 Roberts Ave, Oakland, CA 94605-1156, 510-569-3110, www.polyphonmusic.com
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SAVE $’s on REUGE & THORENS MUSIC BOX REPAIR & RESTORATION – MBSI MEMBERS RECEIVE WHOLESALE PRICING.
40 + Years experience servicing all makes & models of cylinder and disc music boxes, bird boxes, bird cages, musical watches, Anri musical figurines, et al. All work guaranteed. We’re the only REUGE FACTORY AUTHORIZED Parts & Repair Service Center for all of North America. Contact: DON CAINE -The Music Box Repair Center Unlimited, 24703 Pennsyl.vania Ave., Lomita, CA 90717-1516. Phone:
(310) 534-1557 Email: MBRCU@AOL.COM. On the Web: www.musicboxrepaircenter.com
Advertise in The Mart
Have some spare parts or extra rolls taking up the space where you should be installing your next acquisition? Ready to trade up, but need to sell one of your current pieces first? Get the word out to other collectors by advertising in The Mart, an effective advertising tool at an inexpensive price.
Fill out the form below and mail to MBSI at 130 Coral Court, Pismo Beach, CA 93449. Call (253) 228.1634 with questions.
3………. Renaissance Antiques 54…….. Music Box Restorations 54…….. Miller Organ Clock 55…….. Golden Gate Chapter 56…….. Stanton Auctions 57…….. Porter Music Box Company 58…….. MBSGB 58…….. American Treasure Tour 59…….. Reeder Pianos 59…….. Cottone Auctions 59…….. Ben’s Player Piano Service 59…….. 4-4Time.com 61…….. Nancy Fratti Music Boxes 66…….. Marty Persky Music Boxes 67…….. Morphy Auctions 68…….. Auction Team Breker
Name Phone Email Text of ad
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Call MBSI Administrator Jacque Beeman at
(417) 886-8839 or send a check to: Musical Box Society International P.O. Box 10196 Springfield, MO 65808-0196
OFFICERS, TRUSTEES & COMMITTEES of the MUSICAL BOX SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL®
OFFICERS President
Tom Kuehn 4 Williams Woods Mahtomedi, MN 55115 kuehn001@umn.edu
Vice President
David Corkrum 5826 Roberts Avenue Oakland, CA 94605 musikwerke@att.net
Recording Secretary
Linda Birkitt PO Box 541 San Juan Capistrano, CA 92693 scarletpimpernel28@yahoo.com
Treasurer
Edward Kozak 3615 North Campbell Avenue Chicago, IL 60618 ekozak1970@gmail.com
TRUSTEES
Dave Calendine Bob Caletti Ed Cooley Dave Corkrum
G.Wayne Finger Matt Jaro Tom Kuehn Mary Ellen Myers
MBSI FUNDS
COMMITTEES Audit
Edward Cooley, Chair, Trustee Dave Calendine, Trustee Matt Jaro, Trustee
Endowment Committee
Edward Kozak, Treasurer, Chair Edward Cooley, Trustee Dave Calendine, Trustee B Bronson Wayne Wolf
Executive Committee
Tom Kuehn, Chair, President David Corkrum, Vice President Clay Witt, Immediate Past Pres.
G.Wayne Finger, Trustee Mary Ellen Myers, Trustee
Finance Committee
Edward Kozak, Chair, Treasurer Wayne Wolf, Vice Chair David Corkrum, Vice President Edward Cooley, Trustee Peter Both
Marketing Committee
Bob Smith, Chair Dave Calendine, Trustee
G.Wayne Finger, Trustee Judy Caletti
Meetings Committee
Matt Jaro, Chair, Trustee Judy Caletti Tom Chase Cotton Morlock Rich Poppe
Membership Committee
Chair, TBD Mary Ellen Myers, Trustee,
Southeast Linda Birkitt, Southern California Gary Goldsmith, Snowbelt Christine Hopwood, Golden Gate Julie Morlock, Southeast Rob Pollock, Mid-America Dan Wilson, Piedmont Gerald Yorioka, Northwest Int’l TBD, East Coast TBD, Great Lakes TBD, National Capital TBD, Sunbelt
Museum Committee
Sally Craig, Chair Clay Witt, Immediate Past Pres. Glenn Crater, National Capital Ken Envall, Southern California Julian Grace, Sunbelt Matt Jaro, National Capital Rob Pollock, Mid-America Richard Simpson, East Coast
Museum Sub-Committees
Ohio Operations Rob Pollock
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES Publications Back Issues:
Jacque Beeman
Regina Certificates:
B Bronson
MBSI Pins and Seals:
Jacque Beeman
Librarian:
Jerry Maler
Historian:
Bob Yates
Nominating Committee
Dan Wilson, Chair Clay Witt, Immediate Past Pres. Bob Caletti, Golden Gate, Trustee Mary Ellen Myers, Trustee,
Southeast Jonathan Hoyt, Golden Gate Robin Biggins, Southern California Aaron Muller, Lake Michigan
Publications Committee
Bob Caletti, Chair, Trustee Steve Boehck Dave Corkrum, Vice President Christian Eric Kathleen Eric Terry Smythe
Publications Sub-Committee
Website Committee Rick Swaney, Chair B Bronson Don Henry Knowles Little, Web Secretary
Special Exhibits Committee
Chair Mary Ellen Myers, Trustee, Southeast David Corkrum, Vice President,
Golden Gate Donald Caine, Southern California Jack Hostetler, Southeast Knowles Little, National Capital Judy Miller, Piedmont Aaron Muller, Lake Michigan Wayne Myers, Southeast Rick Swaney, Northwest Int’l
MBSI Editorial Office:
Iron Dog Media 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449 editor@mbsi.org
Members can donate to these funds at any time.
Send donations to: General Fund (unrestricted)
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Springfield, MO 65808-0196. Museum Fund (supports museum operations)
All manuscripts will be subject to editorial review. Committee and the Editorial Staff. are considered to be the author’s personal opinion. Articles submitted for publication may be edited The article will not be published with significant The author may be asked to substantiate his/her or rejected at the discretion of the Publications changes without the author’s approval. All articles statements.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Date Event Location Sponsor
Aug. 31-Sept. 5, 2022 Joint MBSI / AMICA Annual Meeting San Mateo, CA Golden Gate Chapter/ AMICA Founding Chapter
When will your chapter meet next? Holding a “virtual meeting?” Let us know! Send in your information by Oct. 1, 2021, for the November/December issue. Don’t hold your questions until the next chapter meeting. Ask them today on our Facebook discussion group
-the Music Box Society Forum.
Please send dates for the Calendar of Events to Russell Kasselman (editor@mbsi.org)
CONTACTS
Administrator Jacque Beeman handles back issues (if available) $6; damaged or issues not received, address changes, MBSI Directory listing changes, credit card charge questions, book orders, status of your membership, membership renewal, membership application, and MBSI Membership Brochures. P.O. Box 10196 Springfield, MO 65808-0196 Phone/Fax (417) 886-8839 jbeeman.mbsi@att.net
Traveling MBSI Display Bill Endlein 21547 NW 154th Pl. High Springs, FL 32643-4519 Phone (386) 454-8359 sembsi@yahoo.com
Regina Certificates: Cost $5. B Bronson Box 154 Dundee, MI 48131 Phone (734) 529-2087 art@d-pcomm.net
Advertising for Mechanical Music Russell Kasselman Iron Dog Media 130 Coral Court Pismo Beach, CA 93449 Phone (253) 228-1634 editor@mbsi.org
CHAPTERS
Snowbelt
Chair: Tracy Tolzmann (651) 674-5149 Dues $10 to Gary Goldsmith 17160 – 245th Avenue Big Lake, MN 55309
Southeast
Chair: Jack Hostetler (352) 633-1942 Dues $5 to Clay Witt 820 Del Rio Way Unit 203 Merritt Island, FL 32953
Museum Donations Sally Craig, 2720 Old Orchard Road Lancaster, PA 17601 Phone (717) 295-9188 rosebud441@juno.com
MBSI website Rick Swaney, 4302 209th Avenue NE Sammamish, WA 98074 Phone (425) 836-3586 r_swaney@msn.com
Web Secretary Knowles Little 9109 Scott Dr. Rockville, MD 20850 Phone (301) 762-6253 kglittle@verizon.net
CHAPTERS
East Coast
Chair: Elise Low (203) 457-9888 Dues $5 to Roger Wiegand 281 Concord Road Wayland, MA 01778 or pay via PayPal, send to treasurereccmbsi@gmail.com
Golden Gate
Chair: Jonathan Hoyt jenjenhoyt@yahoo.com Dues $5 to Dave Corkrum 5826 Roberts Ave. Oakland, CA 94605
Japan
Chair: Naoki Shibata 81-72986-1169 naotabibito396amb@salsa.ocn.ne.jp Treasurer: Makiko Watanabe makikomakiko62@yahoo.co.jp
Lake Michigan
Chair: Aaron Muller (847) 962-2330 Dues $5 to James Huffer 7930 N. Kildare Skokie, Illinois 60076
Mid-America
Chair: Rob Pollock (937) 508-4984 Dues $10 to Harold Wade 4616 Boneta Road Medina, OH 44256
National Capital
Chair: Matthew Jaro (301) 482-2008 Dues $5 to Florie Hirsch 8917 Wooden Bridge Road Potomac, MD 20854
Northwest International
Chair: Rick Swaney (425) 836-3586 Dues $7.50/person to Kathy Baer 8210 Comox Road Blaine, WA 98230
Piedmont
Temp Chair: Dan Wilson (919) 740-6579 musicboxmac@mac.com Dues $10 to Dan Wilson 4804 Latimer Road Raleigh, NC. 276099
Southern California
Chair: Robin Biggins (310) 377-1472 Dues $10 to Diane Lloyd 1201 Edgeview Drive Cowan Hgts, CA 92705
Sunbelt
Chair: Ray Dickey (713) 467-0349 Dues $10 to Diane Caudill 4585 Felder Road Washington, TX 77880
Copyright 2021 the Musical Box Society International, all rights reserved. Permission to reproduce by any means, in whole or in part, must be obtained in writing from the MBSI Executive Committee and the Editor. Mechanical Music is published in the even months. ISSN 1045-795X
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Mechanical Music at its Best -Visit www.Mechmusic.com
Instrument Brokering & Locating / Appraisals / Inspections / Free Consultation
Welte 4 Concert Violina Orchestra Wurlitzer CX with Bells Hupfeld Helios II/25 Welte Brisgovia C Luxus
Weber Unika Weber Maesto Weber Otero Seeburg KT Special Bowfront Violano
Regina 35 w Clock Nelson Wiggen Style 8 Symphonion 25st
Call Marty Persky 847-675-6144 or email: Marty@Mechmusic.com for further information on these and other fine instruments.
Bacigalupo violinopan barrel 2-seater elephant sofa in theorgan, Model 9, c. 1895 fairground style, c. 1980
Estimate: 5.000 – 7.000 ˜ / Estimate: 2.000 – 2.500 ˜ /$ 5.900 – 8.260
$ 2.360 – 2.950
“Princess”, 2-inch scale model of a Fowler showman’s engine Estimate: 5.000 – 8.000 ˜ / $ 5.900 – 9.440
World’s Leading Specialty Auctions
»Mechanical Music & Carousel«
24 + 25 September 2021 5 + 6 November 2021
Galloper carousel horse, Arthur E. Anderson, Designer & Wood Carver, Bristol, c. 1920 Estimate: 7.000 – 9.000 ˜ / $ 8.260 – 10.620
“Bimbo Box” with mechanical monkeys, Automatenfabrik Bk, Betlinghausen Estimate: 2.500 – 2.500 ˜ / $ 2.950 – 2.950
Fairground working model of a gondola switchback Estimate: 1.200 – 1.800 ˜ / $ 1.415 – 2.120 Unusual horn gramophone Estimate: 1.200 – 1.800 ˜ / $ 1.415 – 2.120
Hupfeld Clavitist electric piano, c. 1910
Estimate: 2.500 – 3.500 ˜ / $ 2.950 – 4.130
Friedrich Heyn Carousel Horse, Caroussel-Pferde und Kunstfiguren Fabrik, Neustadt an der Orla, c 1900 Estimate: 5.000 – 7.000 ˜ / $ 5.900 – 8.260
Book-playing fairground organ by Alfred Bruder, Waldkirch, c. 1928 Estimate: 20.000 – 30.000 ˜ / $ 23.600 – 35.400
…and many more!
For more information and large colour photographs of some more of the upcoming Highlights please visit our website at: www.Breker.com / New Highlights and youtube.com/auctionteambreker Fully-illustrated bilingual (Engl.-German) COLOUR Catalogue available against prepayment only:
Euro 28.– (Europe) or elsewhere Euro 37.– (approx. US$ 44.– / Overseas)
. Consignments are welcome at any time!
Polyphon Style 104 disc musical box, Polyphon Musikwerke, Leipzig, c. 1899“Buffalo Bill” smoking automaton
Estimate: 6.000 – 8.000 ˜ /
by Gustave Vichy, c. 1890 – The Specialists in »Technical Antiques« –
$ 7.080 – 9.440 Estimate: 7.000 – 9.000 ˜ / P. O. Box 50 11 19, 50971 Koeln/Germany · Tel.: +49 / 2236 / 38 43 40 · Fax: +49 / 2236 / 38 43 430 $ 8.260 – 10.620
Otto-Hahn-Str. 10, 50997 Koeln (Godorf)/Germanye-mail: Auction@Breker.com · www.breker.com · Business Hours: Tue – Fri 9 am – 5 pm
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PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT OUR INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES: Japan: Murakami Taizou, Tel./Fax (06) 68 45 86 28 * murakami@ops.dti.ne.jp · China: Jiang Feng, Tel. 138 620 620 75 * jiangfengde@gmail.com Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore: Alex Shih-Chieh Lin, (HK), Tel. (+852) 94 90 41 13 * alexsclin@gmail.com England: Tel. +49 (0) 176 991 40593 * AuctionTeamBrekerUK@outlook.de · France: Pierre J. Bickart, Tel. (01) 43 33 86 71 * AuctionTeamKoln@aol.com
Russia: Maksim Suravegin, Tel. +7 903 558 02 50 * Maksim-ATB.ru@gmx.net U.S.A.: Andrew Truman, Tel. (207) 485 8343 * AndrewAuctionTeamBreker@gmail.com · Australia & New Zealand: P. Bardenheier, (NZ), Tel./Fax (+64) (0)9 817 72 68 * dbarden@orcon.net.nz