And the Band Played On

QUESTION: Recently, I visited the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, where they have a fine collection of old music boxes. I love the tinny music that they played. And as sophisticated as music playing devices are these days, I still enjoy the romantic sound of those old machines. What can you tell me about their history? I know they’re highly collectible, but it would take a small fortune to be able to collect them.

ANSWER: Music boxes come in all shapes and sizes, from the tiny ones inside jewelry boxes to the gigantic band organs found on old carousels. I believe the type you’re speaking of are the ones produced for home use.

By definition, a music box is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth, called lamellae, of a steel comb.

In 1796, Antoine Favre-Salomon, a clockmaker from Geneva replaced the stack of bells of a carillon by a comb with multiple pre-tuned metallic notes in order to reduce space, and together with a horizontally placed pinned barrel, produced more varied and complex sounds. This he called carillons à musique, French for "chimes of music." Slivers of steel, shaped, polished, tapered, and screwed into position so that the projections in a rotating cylinder could pluck at its free extremity was capable of emitting a pure musical sound at an acceptable pitch and volume for its size. Some of the more deluxe models also contained a tiny drum and/or bells in addition to the metal comb.

The typical table music box had six interchangeable cylinders. It could have been any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture, but most were tabletop models.  Artisan clockmakers produced clockwork mechanisms to power them. For most of the 19th century, Switzerland was home to the majority of music box makers. Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod opened the first music box factory there in 1815. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century, some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States.

Manufacturers made the cylinders of metal and powered them by a spring. In some of the more deluxe models the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which Metert of Geneva perfected in 1879.

But the cylinder music box was, at best, a cumber-some device, and expensive. From the beginnings of today's music box technology, the music box underwent a progressive improvement in Germany and later in the United States.

In 1870, a new type of music box appeared in Germany that played changeable flat discs instead of cylinders. Invented almost simultaneously in London by Ellis Parrand and in Leipzig by Paul Lochmann, it revolutionized devices that played music. The worldwide center of the industry was in Leipzig and Berlin. In the last decades of the 19th century, however, mass-produced models, such as the Polyphon, made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. The cylinder-based machines rapidly lost popularity. By 1895 more than 3,000 people were employed in Leipzig, and exports from there went to many parts of the world.

The term "music box" also applied to clockwork devices which had a removable metal disk or cylinder that was only used to program them without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb. Instead, the cylinder or disk worked by activating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which, in turn, activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. The Orchestrion could do both at the same time, essentially combining a music box with a player piano.



One of the earliest music boxes to be sold in America was called the Symphonion. It employed steel discs, had a patented fly wheel, speed regulator, side dampers, and double comb arrangement. One winding would allow it to play for 30 minutes. The Symphonion won awards at shows in Chicago in 1893 and Antwerp, Belgium in 1894. Prices ranged, depending on the degree of sophistication, from $4 all the way up to $300.

There were many variations of these large music machines, usually built for the wealthy of the pre-phonograph 19th century. Some were called the Symphonium while others were called the Concert Regina Music Box machine. Both variations were as tall as a grandfather clock and both used interchangeable large disks to play different sets of tunes. Both were spring-wound and driven and both had a bell-like sound. The machines were often made in England, Italy, and the US, with additional disks made in Switzerland, Austria, and Prussia. Early "jukebox" pay versions of them existed in public places.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, most music boxes were gradually replaced by player pianos, which were louder and more versatile and melodious, when kept tuned, and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices. Escalating labor costs increased the price and further reduced volume.

But the invention of the phonograph, the First World War, and the economic crisis in the 1920s made the luxury music box completely disappear.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Music From the Past That Captures Your Heart

QUESTION: I’m now the proud owner of a beautiful 19th-century music box that has been handed down for generations ever since my great-grandfather owned it. It’s a real beauty and still plays. I can tell it needs service, but I have no idea where to take it. The type of box I have has a metal cylinder inside with little pins stuck into it. As it turns, the mechanism plucks the pins to produce the music. I also have several different cylinders for it. On the inside of the lid is a label that says “Made by Nicole Freres of Geneva, Switzerland.” What can you tell me about my music box? Also, can you tell me where I should take it to be serviced?

ANSWER: You have a unique cylinder music box made by the prestigious Geneva company of Nicole Freres in 1862. This particular music box reproduces the sound of a piano forte using a two-comb movement, combined with a two-per-turn format on its larger cylinder that enables it to play a dozen operatic tunes with elegant sound. The musical mechanism sits in a beautiful rosewood case with intricate inlays.

When people think of mechanical music, most think of music boxes. The early ones like the one you have appeared at the beginning of the 19th century and lasted until about the time of World War I. However, people tend to lump all types of mechanical music devices into the general music box category. What you have is far beyond the type used in jewelry boxes and other novelties. It’s the forerunner of the phonograph and of all the other music players on the market today.

Mechanical music is a live performance of music, played by a machine, without any human intervention, except for winding it up, plugging it in, or turning it off. The invention of mechanical music devices allowed people to enjoy music before electricity, when the only option was to attend a live performance or to create their own music.

Mechanical music goes back to the 14th century, with the invention of the carillon, which automatically played music on tuned bells actuated by hammers on levers by way of a pinned drum. Primarily used in churches to play hymns, the drum could be programmed to play different song selections by moving the pins from one location to another.

The mechanical pipe organ appeared in the 15th century. This instrument, through valves actuated by pins on the drum, allowed selected pipes to play organ music mechanically. During the 16th century, the mechanical pipe organ gained widespread popularity in Europe, and soon expanded beyond churches and public buildings. It became a must-have novelty for aristocratic society. Eventually, cabinetmakers built   desks and cabinets to encase carillons or pipe organs. These mechanical devices became so trendy for the well-to-do that heeled that famous musicians of the day, including Beethoven, Handel and Mozart, actually wrote pieces specifically for them.

It wasn’t until the late 18th century that mechanical music experienced any change. In 1796, Antoine Favre, a Geneva clockmaker, patented a device to make carillons play without bells or hammers. His invention paved the way for cylinder boxes, which had a comb of hard steel with a series of teeth or tiny  tuning forks, which graduated from long and thick to short and thin. Pins placed on a rotating cylinder, which when moved laterally, plucked these teeth and produced different tunes.

Clockmakers began constructing cylinder boxes in the late 18th century and continued making them well into the late 19th century. Over time, the mechanical music industry saw many advances in technology. Eventually, they developed over 20 different musical effects by changing the size, placement, tuning, and arrangement of the pins on the cylinder. Most cylinder boxes reproduce music of either a mandolin or a piano forte. The first produces a softer more folksy sound while the second produces a louder bolder sound simulating an early piano. Most mandolin cylinder music boxes played only 4 to 6 tunes while the piano forte version played 12.

And although the cylinder music box revolutionized the mechanical music industry, it had its limitations.  While interchangeable cylinders allowed for the playing of different tunes, it was a cumbersome process to change them. In the late 1880s, all that changed with the introduction in Germany of the disc musical box. This revolutionized the industry because instead of the slow and delicate process of inserting pins in cylinders, the discs could be stamped out by machine. Also, it was easy for people to change the discs on the machines, making it possible for them to hear the latest tunes.

While the 19th century also saw the development of many other forms of mechanical music, none could hold their own against the evolution of the phonographic record player and by the 1920s, interest in music boxes had subsided.

What makes mechanical music devices unique is their blend of art, history, music, and mechanics. Although they can’t be compared to other collectibles, condition, rarity and market demand still affect the price. They also take a good deal of maintenance to keep them running well and, thus, enabling them to hold their value. Only a professional music box restoration expert can make sure that a box is kept in good condition. However, finding one may be a challenge but worth it since a cylinder box in excellent condition can sell for four figures.