Help me identify this old music box

December 2, 2008 3:11 PM

Help me identify this music box! it's big, about 2' wide, 1' deep, and 1' tall, made put of wood with a brass crank on the left end to wind it up. It can play about 12 songs depending on how the selector is set, and one of the ways it makes sounds is by having little brass bees clink against cymbals. Some crappy cellphone pics are here.

The woman who owns it is in her late 30's and said she got it from her grandmother or great-grandmother.

I can probably get more pictures if they would be helpful.

posted by dolface to Technology (3 answers total)

It's an old cylinder music box:

http://www.mechantiques.com/cylindermusicboxes.asp

If you scroll down and look at the pictures on that page, you'll see examples of similar music boxes that feature the bells and strikers.
posted by katillathehun at 3:38 PM on December 2, 2008

Thanks for that!
I'm hoping to track down the manufacturer of the box as well, so any suggestions (or even wild speculation) would be appreciated.
posted by dolface at 3:45 PM on December 2, 2008

Could be a Paillard. They're partly credited with inventing the ability to change tunes on those things, and they were a big music box manufacturer. There are bunches of them, though, and the bee strikers were really popular. Bremond, Jaccard du Grand, and Langdorf are some others I'm seeing a lot of, and a lot of the Langdorf models have similar decorations on the front, if that helps.
posted by katillathehun at 4:30 PM on December 2, 2008