~1880 Swiss Rosewood 10 Air 6 inch Musical Box Unsigned
Late 19th Century Unsigned Swiss Faux Rosewood Musical Box with 10 International Tunes on a 6" Cylinder
In a Nutshell
Listening to a music box was one of the earliest home entertainment activities, before Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph and Emile Berliner the gramophone
Introduction:
The Swiss music box shown here was in the inventory of the Mechanical Music Museum (MMM) in Chemainus, Canada, owned by Dave and Sandra Doldon (ref.1) and priced for sale at $2000 (ref.2). These boxes were manufactured in a small part of Switzerland late in the 19th century, before phonographs and gramophones were coming up. Of course Swiss watch makers were best qualified to do the precision manufacturing necessary for these machines. Most boxes were not marked by a maker's name, but all are of comparable and excellent quality. Two numbers characterize a box: the number of tunes and the number of teeth in the comb. The higher both numbers, the higher is the number of steel pins needed to excite the comb's teeth. Tunes are laterally displaced on a pinned cylinder, and displayed on a tune number indicator by the automatic mechanics. They can be automatically repeated or played all in sequence. All tunes are summarized in the tunesheet (pict.17) as follows:
10 airs 6 Pouces (=inch)
1
Oh you wonderful girl
Cohan
2
Luxembourg Walzer
Lehar
3
Ragging the baby to sleep
Muir
4
Faust Romance des fleurs
Gounod
5
Die Dollarprinzessin Lied
Fall
6
There's a girl in Havana
Sloane
7
Take me back to New-York town
Tilzer
8
Humoreska
Dvorak
9
The Oceana Roll
Denni
10
Love Waltz A la bien aimee
Schutt
No 5038/209.
These tunesheets, mostly printed by lithographer Picard-Lion Genève have to match the specific cylinder, its comb, and the comb's tuning, and were all made in limited editions. This one looks very international, and the box seems to have been made for export. The glass dust cover seems to have been hand-made too (see stretched bubble in pict.20). All you need to know about combs, leads, and dampers, before buying a music box, is well summarized by Lynn Bilton in his 4-part article in ref.3.
About my music box:
The faux-rosewood finish as well as the ebonized interior are original and in excellent condition. The transfer pan flute trophy on top has been touched up a little. The motor parts have no oxydation and the pinning is nearly perfect, with the pins standing up vertically and being complete. The leads and dampers are complete too, but - the comb of my machine misses one tooth (out of 33). This is as tragic as with a real tooth, but you wouldn't decide to replace your (remaining) set of teeth with dentures, wouldn't you? You would replace this individual tooth. That's exactly what you can do here and it costs you about the same, $100. Otherwise the music box is in adorable condition and plays loud and clear.
Please
e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.
Here are the specifications:
Technical Description of Item
Manufacturer
Unknown, Switzerland
Model
Unknown
Type
Ten air six inch pinned cylinder music box
Production Year
~1880
Serial Number
28631
Cabinet
Rosewood and ebonized walnut
Cylinder
6" long, 1¾" dia.
Comb
33 teeth, #31 broken
Tuneshhet
Lid with tunesheet printed by Lith. Picard-Lion Genève
Motor
One-spring motor
Controls
Change/repeat, stop/play, hand lever wind-up, tune number indicator
Dimensions (WxDxH)
17¼" x 8" x 5¼"
Weight
5.2 kg = 11½ lbs
Comment
Beautiful late 19th century Swiss 10 Airs Music Box
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