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The disc musical box was invented almost
simultaneously in London by Ellis Parr,
and in Leipzig by Paul Lochmann.
Initially, they worked separately on their inventions,
but eventually got together and developed the Symphonion.
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The Symphonion company, of Leipzig, began the manufacture of the first practical disc playing musical boxes in 1886. In 1889 Paul Wendland an engineer for Symphonion patented the starwheel which acts as the intermediary between the tabs on the discs and the combs.
The starwheel had already been in use but this allowed for the horizontal mounting of the combs thereby increasing the acoustic quality of the music. They continued to make music boxes until 1914. In 1897 a production plant was established in New Jersey America but it was closed by 1902.
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In the 1930s the mechanical instrument industry began a near terminal decline, hit by the increasing availability of radio and gramophone and by the Depression, then by World War II. Most of the old firms closed.
There is a bit on the one I am about to restore,
over on my other blog here.
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2 comments:
Ah, a temporary post, like they used to put on telly when there was a 'temporary fault'. Not taht there's a fault. You know what I mean.
Well, Foody, the way I work is sometimes a bit chaotic! I write my text in my Word processor, I have my pictures somewhere else. I have to resize them you see.
I then search YouTube for some suitable visual/audio to match.
I download the HTML code when I find it, and this seems to be the best place to put it. I can then put the links in (to this) when I do the post on the Monkey-organ site. A 'holding' post would be a better term perhaps? :)
It's a shame you can't hear them.
I assume you are at work :(
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