I gawked at the goodies over at Batterman's the other day with Patty. Wow, what an ingriguing variety of antiques and collectibles. Especially this music making machine for milady's parlor, circa the 1890s.
The Regina music box works off metal platters with holes -- just like the old key punch cards for earlier IBMs (or, if you really want to go back further in history, the punched cards used by Jacquard looms as of 1801.)
Since this was a quality piece of household furniture, it included storage room for a proper collection of platters.
Another, less prepossessing music box, this one driven by rolls of punched paper. A familiar sight if you've ever seen music rolls for a player piano. I was surprised at just how big the holes were in this music roll, however.
These automated predecessors to the iPod reminded me of a small corner of family history. My grandfather's brother founded the Mills Novelty Company in Chicago before the turn of the century (the 20th, that is). Tho Mortie didn't invent the slot machine, he managed to acquire the patents and become a major manufacturer of one-armed bandits. But that was in addition to his own inventions -- a splendid assortment of coin operated automatic music machines for the saloon business. I found this Mills machine tonight over at eBay, where it had just sold for $41,000, even though it was an as-is sale.
The Violano-Virtuoso, an automatic violin with a robotic piano for accompaniment. Many years ago in Chicago, a friend and I found a saloon out Milwaukee Avenue whose proprietor collected antique coin-op machines. The violin machine in that particular collection did not feature an actual instrument body, but merely a string plus playing mechanism. The tunes depended, again, upon punched paper rolls. Made by Mills.
Note the claim on that name plate. Today's marketing men don't have nearly the chutzpah of their early predecessors.
I gawked at the goodies over at Batterman's the other day with Patty. Wow, what an ingriguing variety of antiques and collectibles. Especially this music making machine for milady's parlor, circa the 1890s.
The Regina music box works off metal platters with holes -- just like the old key punch cards for earlier IBMs (or, if you really want to go back further in history, the punched cards used by Jacquard looms as of 1801.)
Since this was a quality piece of household furniture, it included storage room for a proper collection of platters.
Another, less prepossessing music box, this one driven by rolls of punched paper. A familiar sight if you've ever seen music rolls for a player piano. I was surprised at just how big the holes were in this music roll, however.
These automated predecessors to the iPod reminded me of a small corner of family history. My grandfather's brother founded the Mills Novelty Company in Chicago before the turn of the century (the 20th, that is). Tho Mortie didn't invent the slot machine, he managed to acquire the patents and become a major manufacturer of one-armed bandits. But that was in addition to his own inventions -- a splendid assortment of coin operated automatic music machines for the saloon business. I found this Mills machine tonight over at eBay, where it had just sold for $41,000, even though it was an as-is sale.
The Violano-Virtuoso, an automatic violin with a robotic piano for accompaniment. Many years ago in Chicago, a friend and I found a saloon out Milwaukee Avenue whose proprietor collected antique coin-op machines. The violin machine in that particular collection did not feature an actual instrument body, but merely a string plus playing mechanism. The tunes depended, again, upon punched paper rolls. Made by Mills.
Note the claim on that name plate. Today's marketing men don't have nearly the chutzpah of their early predecessors.
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