I ASSURE you that listening to music as I write this is purely as an aid to concentration.  The fact that the music is being beamed to my desk via the Internet and coming from stereo speakers connected to my computer is purely incidental.

Click here for a music box slideshow

But it is worth stopping for a moment to consider the technological advances we’ve seen, even during the 20-odd years I’ve been writing this weekly column.

Time was when I wanted to listen to my favourite artist, I’d select the appropriate 12-inch plastic disc, place it on an electrically driven turntable, and set a needle on it. Talk about the dark ages (though I still cannot bring myself to part with my collection of plastic discs!).

When our grandparents and great-grandparents wanted the pleasure of having music in

their homes, they probably produced it themselves. Singalongs around the piano was a part of everyday life, nowadays sadly replaced by the TV set (or computer).

But there was mechanical innovation even then. Thanks to the quality of craftsmanship, it’s still possible to listen to a whole medley of Victorian music hall tunes on the very same machines that were playing them when they were in the hit parade.

For the uninitiated, the term mechanical music machine covers such gloriously eclectic inventions as barrel organs, Polyphons, music boxes, phonographs, pianolas, organettes and Symphonions.

However, that delightful tinkling sound from a music box or Polyphon can have a ruinous effect on your bank balance, unless your pocket is particularly deep.

It’s unlikely there’ll be much change out of about £1,200-£1,500 for a reasonable Swiss-made music box from the late 1800s, while a small Polyphon could be yours around £1,000.

Miniature musical movements were probably invented by Geneva-born Antoine Favre and had been in existence since about 1796.

The cylinder music box first appeared in about 1820. In these, a clockwork movement causes a brass cylinder to revolve. The cylinder is set with tiny projecting steel pins which pluck a metal “comb”, each tooth giving a different note.

Sound reproduction was crude, but advances including the use of tiny feather quill dampers and, in 1838, the introduction by important makers Nicole Freres of a two-comb machine – one playing louder than the other for a more dynamic sound – soon set the music box on the road to success.

Further innovations turned the "machine" into an orchestra. In about 1850, miniature beating drums, castanets and chiming bells were added and from about 1860, these were positioned in full view. Today this adds greatly to the value of a music box.

STEPHEN KEMBER is a specialist dealer in mechanical music boxes and he pointed out some of the things to watch out for when making a purchase.

Importantly, careful inspection of the revolving cylinder will reveal any bent pins. The bass end or any sections that drive accessories such as bells or drums are especially vulnerable. An excessive number of damaged pins will impair the music and repinning the whole cylinder is the only expensive solution.

Look also for excessive pitting to the surface of the comb, missing teeth and tips and badly repaired sections. Corroded tuning weights (suspended beneath the comb) will be indicated by a fine white deposit around the affected area.

Should a whisper, click or grating noise be heard whilst playing,the likely cause will be a worn comb or dampers that are out of alignment or missing. Dampers are small pieces of fine wire fixed to the underside of a comb that curl up to meet the comb tip. In the case of a disc box, the damper, in the form of a delicate leaf spring, will emerge from between the tips of the comb.

Said Stephen: “Listen to and observe as many musical boxes as possible before making a commitment. Protect yourself with experience.”

Stephen Kember can be contacted on +44 (0)1959 574067 or by email at enquiries@antique-musicboxes.com.

Another important development came in 1854 when interchangeable cylinders were perfected. This meant the end of problems over limited repertoire.

Previously cylinders played only six to eight tunes which soon became tiresome. However, later boxes were sold with up to 36 cylinders, each one carrying eight tunes, although they were extremely expensive then as now.

In 1875, music boxes with four springs were developed which would play non-stop for up to three hours with a single winding.

The above will go some way to helping date a box, the type of tunes it plays is another pointer.

Until about 1835, operatic themes predominated. Ballads and folk songs took over until 1850 and music hall tunes dominated more cheaply produced boxes from 1850-1875. Classical music was reserved for the rich.

Finally, styles of cases can help with dating. Earliest were in plain oak or mahogany,  followed in the mid-1820s by polished rosewood. By 1835, mechanism controls like the winder and change/repeat levers were hidden inside under a hinged lid.

From about 1843, this flap was likely to be in glass, as was that covering the mechanism to keep out the dust. Beautifully inlaid cases first appeared in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition.

All manner of exotic woods were used for the inlay, as well as silver, mother of pearl, ivory and brass. Marquetry decoration featuring trumpets, tambourines and sheets of music was popular.

The beginning of the end for the music box came in 1885 when circular card discs were introduced which did the job of the costly to produce brass cylinders. These had perforations which caused tiny levers to pluck the comb in an adapted box called a Symphonion.

Metal discs were introduced in 1887 which were both cheap to produce and gave clear reproduction. This meant an almost unlimited supply of up to the moment tunes were available for the masses. The forerunner of today’s LPs if you like. Cylinder boxes had no answer and went into decline.

The other great name in disc music boxes was Polyphon, formed by two breakaway Symphonion workers. However, the competition was not without its legal problems. Lengthy court battles over patents continued throughout 1896, but both companies survived to continue production and become the market leaders.

Both also produced massive floor standing machines intended for use in cafes and bars. These were coin-operated and in 1897 also featured a self-changing device so that customers could choose tunes from a number of discs. Hey presto, the forerunner of today’s jukebox!

Of course, if all this is too rich for your pocket, you could always opt for the forerunner of the hi-fi, the good old wind-up gramophone, and you can still buy one for less than £50. There are more expensive ones, particularly those with horns, special mechanisms or beautiful cabinets. But the run of the mill wind-up is still well within the reach of the individual.

That, coupled with the ready availability of old 78 rpm records – despite children’s attempts to turn them all into plant pots (remember, you used to poor boiling water over them so they’d melt) – make them a natural target for the collector, particularly youngsters.

Fact is, music boxes were an immensely popular form of home entertainment in the 19th century, not surprisingly, perhaps, because short of playing it yourself, they supplied the only means of having music at hand.

As a result, the music box occupied a place of honour in the Victorian parlour, where it enchanted everyone with its tinkling rendition of airs, arias, hymns, overtures, folk songs, and patrotic marches as well as the latest “pop” waltzes and polkas that inspired the audience to roll back the carpet and dance.

The forerunner of the music box was probably a type of pocket watch that chimed the hour.

As many as 10 tiny bells were fitted one inside the other in the case and on the hour, a number of rotating brass hammers tinkled out a tune and then whatever o’clock it was.

Next came the invention in 1796 by Antoine Favre of a musical watch movement that had neither bells nor hammers.

His brainwave employed a series of steel teeth, each one of varying length and individually tuned, which were fastened fan-like to a baseplate.

Beneath this was a disc studded with as many as 40 tiny strategically placed pins which plucked the steel teeth as it revolved. The result was a music box movement barely two inches wide.

Soon, the demand for music on the move began to exceed that for watches alone.

Being so small, Favre’s movement could fit any of the elaborate gold and enamelled snuff and jewellery boxes that were already popular throughout Europe and with a simple improvement, an even more miniature version was possible.

Instead of arranging the steel teeth in a fan shape, they were set like a tiny hair comb, while the pins that plucked them were placed around the surface of the brass barrel containing the clockwork spring that drove the movement.

Now Swiss watchmakers were able to put minute musical movements into the handles of a walking sticks, fans and even finger rings.

Of course, the quality of music produced by these novelties was not great. For a start, only so many musical notes could be accommodated in so small a space.

However, in 1810, Swiss watchmaker David Lecoultre hit on the idea of a revolving brass cylinder which was capable of carrying as many as 50,000 pins.

The cylinder music box was born – and with it a repertoire of comparatively staggering variety.

Throughout the 19th century the Swiss were at the forefront in production of music boxes and few Victorian parlours were without one.

At first, manufacture was a cottage industry with whole families being involved.

Innovation and quality of products continued to improve, however, and assembly of components began to be centred on various workshops.

From a relatively poor playing performance with music boxes being restricted to old favourite tunes, progress was such that within a few years, it was possible to listen to excerpts from the latest mainstream classical compositions.

Highly elaborate mechanisms performed for extended periods on a single winding and were capable of playing several hundred notes complete with “percussion”.

This was achieved by tiny drums and castanets which, when struck by small hammers – again controlled by the revolving cylinder – produced a rhythmic accompaniment.

Combinations of small bells and carefully tuned combs of notes created sounds like those of mandolins, piccolos, zithers, flutes and glockenspiels.

The development of the music box into a serious form of home entertainment came at a time of a great surge of interest in opera and classical music.

Consequently, large “Overture” music boxes with interchangeable cylinders became all the rage, their repertoire of as many as 30 tunes per cylinder only just keeping pace with the scores of new works being composed at the time.

The Swiss company Nicole Freres (Nicole brothers) was a major manufacturer in the mid 19th century, one of their innovations being the “Forte-Piano” which was capable of producing both loud and soft music at the flick of a switch.

Even “stereo sound; was possible by the invention, in 1875, of the “Sublime Harmony” box, patented by Charles Paillard.

This had two combs, tuned identically to play together, as the instrument’s name suggests, to produce a haunting echo effect.

As the mechanisms became more elaborate and efficient, and their repertoire greater and greater, so did the boxes that contained them.

The best were hand-carved and decorated with marquetry, and intricate inlaid patterns in metal, mother-of-pearl and contrasting rare woods.

Those with a number of interchangeable cylinders came with matching cabinets or tables to house them and protect them from damage.

Buying new cylinders pinned to play the latest tunes was all very well, but for many, the cost proved prohibitive.

An inventive and resourceful German called Paul Lochmann of Leipzig hit on the way forward: a machine in which a cheaply made pierced disc replaced the more expensive cylinder.

The introduction of the so-called Symphonion music box in 1886 was an overnight sensation which turned the industry on its head.

Horizontal versions were soon ousting cylinder boxes in the home, while large free standing Symphonions with coin-operated vertical movements were bought for public places.

Restaurants, fairgrounds and ice-cream parlours soon had a Symphonion standing in the corner to delight the clientele, while Swiss railway stations installed them in waiting rooms as a diversion for passengers.

Key to the success of the new machine – apart from the incomparable quality of the music they produced – was the ease with which new discs could be manufactured.

Once a master was made, a simple die-stamping machine could duplicate it in any quantity required.

By 1895, more than 2,000 different music titles were available on discs produced by one company alone.

Two years later, in 1897, came a major refinement: the automatic disc-changer that gave a foretaste of the 20th century jukebox.

Listeners could now pre-select their favourite tunes from a dozen discs stored in the base of the machine and then sit back and hear their selections played.

Thereafter, it was only a matter of time before entrepreneurs began to lease out coin-operated Symphonions fitted with automatic disc change mechanisms.

Discs would be replaced periodically with more up-to-date selections by teams of men employed to service the machines and collect the money.

Picture shows a so-called bells-in-sight cylinder music box, showing clearly the comb and pinned cylinder. As the cylinder rotates, it activates small hammers which strike the bells and small drum at left at the appropriate moments. The tunes played on these Swiss boxes are a delightful reward for the collector prepared to spend £400-600 for a basic model

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by Christopher Proudlove©

Few collectors of my generation will forget the debonair Arthur Negus and the BBC antiques television programme “Going for a Song”. The opening and closing sequences of that hugely influential and educating programme featured a singing bird automaton music box, not unlike the one illustrated here. Now, the chirping bird turning its head from side to side and fluttering its tail in such a jaunty, cheerful manner is an image that has become almost synonymous with collecting.

As someone not permitted by senior management to have a canary in the house, I’ve always hankered after owning a mechanical one, which struck me as possibly the next best thing. And then I learned how much they cost. Needless to say, I’m still saving.

The value of the late 19th century clockwork singing birds has taken flight. You won’t be left with much change out of about £2,000 for a reasonable example in good working order. For the money you get a tiny feathered mechanical bird or birds, hopefully not too moth-eaten, which open and close their beaks in a semblance of syncopation with the sound of bird song or the tinkling of a music box, the movement of which is located in the base of the cage.

Automata that mimic birds have been around for a long time. Archytas of Tarentum (420-411 B.C.) is said to have built a mechanical bird that was propelled by a jet of steam and in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, the Chinese emperor had a mechanical nightingale made of gold and diamonds that could both fly and sing.

True mechanical and musical automatons, in which movement and sound are produced by clockwork, first appeared in the 15th century. Not surprisingly, German clockmakers were the finest exponents of the art, many of whom utilised the tiny moving figures to strike bells or chimes in clock movements.

The idea of transferring the figures from clock face to mantelpiece or sideboard was a natural progression. What helped was the arrival of the barrel organ in the early 16th century, followed by the Carillon (which used bells) and the invention, in 1796, of the musical box.

Each mechanical music machine was adopted in some ingenious way to give movement to automaton figures, favourite among which were monkey magicians. These evil looking creatures performed convincing little conjuring tricks with cups and disappearing dice on stages formed by the top of the box containing the clockwork movement.

However, it was the development of the music box in particular that produced some of the most technically brilliant automatons. Probably the most remarkable were those made at the end of the 18th century by a Swiss-born watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721-1790) and his son, Henri-Louis (1752-1791).

Father’s masterpiece was The Writer. When activated, this seated figure of a young boy dips his quill pen in ink, shakes it twice, and writes a phrase of 40 characters by means of a preset mechanism. Even the figure’s eyes move, watching the pen as it moves down the page.

The contribution made by Droz jnr., was The Draughtsman, similar in all respects as before, except that by means of a series of different cams, the figure draws four different diagrammatical: draw four different images: a portait of Louis XV, a royal couple (believed to be Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI), a dog with “Mon toutou” (“My doggy”) written beside it, and Cupid driving a chariot pulled by a butterfly. The crowned heads of Europe and the emperors of China, India and Japan were among their customers.

The Jaquet-Droz mechanical singing bird, which appeared in about 1780, was subsequently miniaturised and incorporated into the movements of the company’s most expensive clocks. Another clockmaker, Jean-Frederic Leschot (1746-1824) joined the Jaquet-Droz company and he perfected the miniaturisation process, later including it in jewel-encrusted gold boxes, notably those for snuff.

Unlike mechanical musical boxes, in which sounds were produced from the teeth of a steel comb being plucked by pins in a revolving brass cylinder, the singing birds are given their song by an equally intricate method. It relies on tiny bellows.

When a button is pushed, the clockwork mechanism causes a series of rods to move the bird’s head to move from side to side, while at the same time opening and closing its beak and opening, closing and flapping its wings.

Independently to this, the rods also cause a pair of bellows to be squeezed open and closed, forcing air to pass through minute pipes similar to the ones found in a church organ which provides the birdsong. The result – particularly on the better examples – is truly delightful, almost like having a real-life bird in the room.

Singing birds in gilded cages come in varying sizes and population. Small examples are found under four inches in height, but the majority are between 11 and 22 inches, the larger versions with two or occasionally three birds sitting on perches of varying heights. The rarest of all examples are particularly large and ornate and can contain up to 20 birds, giving full rein to the taxidermist’s skill.

Equally charming and similarly rare are singing bird displays in which the creatures sit in naturalistic surroundings such as the branches of a tree but trapped beneath a tall and fragile glass dome. These remain somewhat less popular than their caged compatriots, probably because they looked rather too realistic for today’s politically correct market.

If money is no object, the singing birds to seek out are the rich man’s toys of the late 18th century which decorate gold snuff and other boxes which were nothing more than a display of wealth. Usually a rectangular metal box, made from gold, tortoiseshell, silver gilt or semi-pressures gemstones, the boxes were used to contain snuff, cashous or jewellery and go by the name of tabatière, a French word meaning snuff box.

Decorating the lid, or in rarer examples beneath the lid, is a small, pierced cover which flips open at the push of a button to reveal the bird who snaps to attention to perform his solo as the cover is released. These truly are miracles of miniaturisation and can be exceedingly expensive, as they were once the preserve of only royalty and the very rich.

Most were produced by the French and the Swiss, but several German companies also manufactured singing bird tabatières, with the result the late 19th century and 20th century examples are far more affordable, starting at around £2,000 at auction. However, a fully restored an example from a dealer can be several times the price.

The movements of good singing bird tabatière s are often signed and names to watch out for, in addition to Jaquet-Droz, include Frisard, Bruguier, Rochat, Griesbaum and Bontems. Two makers continue to make singing bird automaton today: the German companies Reuge, who purchased both Bontems in the 1900s and Eschle in 1977, and Griesbaum.

Advice to a would-be buyer: by the best you can afford and preferably one in full working order. A singing bird automaton needing restoration is a job for a trained professional – in fact several trained professionals, since so many disciplines are involved in their manufacture. Repairs are time-consuming and therefore costly.

Pictures show, top: Bird in a gilded cage: actually three birds sing for their supper in this 20th century automaton music box. It’s worth £175-250 at auction

Above, left: A good late 19th century Swiss gilt brass and enamel rectangular singing bird music box, the lid decorated with young lovers, shepherdess and romantic landscape, the sides decorated with oval and circular vignettes depicting Tyrolean landscapes. It sold in a recent auction for £2,000

Right: A good early 20th century German silver gilt cased rectangular singing bird box, sold for £1,700

Below, left: A very fine silver and polychrome enamel singing bird box of outstanding quality by Griesbaum of Germany. The lustrous decoration includes pastoral scenes with courting couples and enamel stringing and panels on all four sides. It’s currently for sale with an asking price of £11,750 at Douglas Fine Antiques, 75 Portobello Road, London, (Tel:07860 680521, www.antique-clocks.co.uk)

Right:
A continental singing bird box in a Bruguier-style cushion shaped case with fine gilt bronze decoration to the sides and top decorated in hand-painted enamel flowers on a pink ground. The lid is beautifully painted with a landscape in enamel. It’s currently for sale with an asking price of £6,750 at Douglas Fine Antiques, 75 Portobello Road, London, (Tel:07860 680521, www.antique-clocks.co.uk)

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