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Swiss interchangeable music box
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Swiss interchangeable music box with four cylinders for sale

This item has been sold. Please contact us - we may be able to find you another.

Interchangeable cylinder music boxes start to be seen in the 1890s. Most were quite expensive, and in the long run, couldn't compete with the convenience and price of interchangeable discs.

I can't tell you who manufactured this box, although I can tell you that we received it with four 11" cylinders. Most important, I can tell you what was done to the box after we received it, and that was a complete musical restoration.

The pinning on interchangeable cylinders tends to get knocked up and bent as the cylinders are removed, stored, and later replayed. There can be thousands of pins on each cylinder, and the pins must be aligned and straightened by hand, a time-consuming and tedious job, and this work must be repeated on each cylinder.

Moreover, the comb must be re-tuned and re-dampered. If the pins are bent they will mangle the dampers, so pin straightening isn't optional if you want the dampers to work -- you can't just re-damper the machine, because the damper squeak will return.

This is a big job, and it was done on this machine.

Regarding the case, we have performed only the minimal necessary conservation on it, to keep it looking old and antique. There is some typical loss of inlay, and some typical spots of veneer peel. We reconstructed the feet as this is necessary to raise the sounding board, and we reconstructed a start/stop and tune change control, which are working properly.

The master tune card was long ago lost, but I call tell you that there are 8 tunes per cylinder.

Case dimensions are approximately 32" long, 13" deep, and 9.5" tall.

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Lynn Bilton
Box 435
Randolph,OH 44265
330 325-7866

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We buy, sell, and repair antique phonographs and music boxes.

Pick-up and delivery possible in many parts of the midwest,south, and northeast.

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