Internet Antique Gazette » music boxes

Ralph Raby Collection – Provenance

hcst — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:48:41 +0000

The Ralph Raby Collection

Ralph Raby is a direct descendant of the Chicago retail shoe magnates George and Joseph Bullock. The Bullocks were typical upper-class Victorians, with a sophisticated eye for fine furniture, art and decorations who traveled extensively throughout Europe. The majority of the Raby collection was assembled by the brothers and their wives in the 1870′s and 1880′s.

Their travels and philosophy were described by Mr. Raby for a 1984 Chicago Tribune article:

It was typical of late 19th century Americans to go to Italy, France and Germany. After 1850 you had a whole middle class that began to travel. Chicago was a big rail center, so Chicagoans could travel easily. The Victorians were interested in the unusual and the exotic, the expanding of their knowledge and education.

When they went abroad they not only investigated Europe, but the Near East, which was being opened up. They took caravan rides across French Morocco and sleigh rides through Russia. They did things that people would think about three or four times before doing today. They knew no fear.

They would bring back mementos, paintings, fabrics, screens, pottery and rugs. For the Bullocks and almost all Victorians, collecting was a way of life.

The collection was housed in Joseph Bullock’s magnificent mansion on Chicago’s North Side, built for Joseph by his brother George (who traveled so extensively that he and his wife stayed only in hotels) and was later inherited by Joseph’s daughter Bertha in 1908. Although Bertha was active in society (she was a founder of Chicago’s Fortnightly Club), her declining health prevented her from remodeling the mansion or altering the collection. Thus when the home was acquired by Mr. Raby, great-great-great nephew of George Bullock, and his partner Glenn C. Hjort in 1961, the home and the collection had been virtually untouched since the late 1800s.

Both Mr. Hjort and Mr. Raby were involved in architectural history and preservation, and both were predisposed to maintain this snapshot of one of America’s most elegant and sophisticated eras. While they made some additions to the collection over the years, they did so with a curatorial eye.

Provenance note by Lee Young, Vice-President, English & Continental Furniture & Decorative Arts, Freeman’s.

LeCoultre Music Box Company

hcst — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:13:26 +0000

LeCoultre Music Box Instruments

Credit for inventing the cylinder music box, circa 1790, is usually given to David LeCoultre, of Brassus, Switzerland. His descendent Francois Charles LeCoultre (1801 to 1850), also a maternal nephew of Isaac Daniel Piquet, founded his company in 1828. He was succeeded by his son, Charles Francois LeCoultre in 1865, who ran it until circa 1871, when it became Perrelet & Co.

Music Box Mechanics

hcst — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:22:03 +0000

Notes on Mechanical Features of Music Boxes

Feather Dampers: Music boxes generally have dampers to prevent a harsh grating sound from being heard as the cylinder pins strike the same vibrating tooth in rapid succession. Basically, most, but not all, of the early pieces had either no dampers or feather dampers, though some of the best early pieces had steel dampers arranged in some unusual ways.

Tooth or Teeth: One of the most basic components of a music box – basically a flexible spring-like steel strip which, when rigidly held at one end and plucked on the other, gives forth a clear, ringing tone. The tooth may be altered in pitch by manipulating the tooth’s thickness, width and weight so that, in effect, a complete musical scale can be achieved.

Originally, prior to 1800, most mechanical music boxes using tuned steel teeth had those teeth screwed down individually. Later, so called ‘sectional combs’ were made which had teeth in sections of two, three and eventually five or more. Then one of the great makers, perhaps David LeCoultre, invented the solid (one piece construction with multiple teeth cut into a single block of steel) comb.

Cuff Music Boxes

hcst — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:36:19 +0000

Cuff Music Boxes

Cuff music boxes were designed and developed by Ferdinand Otto of the F. G. Otto & Sons Co. of New Jersey circa 1894 and sold under the Capital brand name. They were called cuff music boxes because of the shape of their music cylinders which resembles a gentleman’s shirt cuff. The cylinders were designed and developed by Patrick Kennedy of Brooklyn , New York , a machinist and designer for the F. G. Otto Company.

The Capital cuff music box produces a very balanced and pleasant sound, more so than most traditional disc players. These rare machines were introduced in 1895 and were only manufactured for a very short period of time, making them extremely scarce. With sales underway in 1895, the Otto firm hired M. J. Paillard, the highly respected music box retailers of New York, to market their unique new box.

Capital cuff music boxes came in both mahogany and oak boxes, each with an original landscape print inside the cover, a trademark of the Otto Company. A typical Capital music box was sold with 23 cuff cylinders.

Stella Music Boxes

hcst — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:50:00 +0000

Stella Music Boxes

Stellas were the swan song for the Mermod Freres company of Ste. Croix, Switzerland. They were vastly over-engineered which led to extremely high production costs. This ultimately led to bankruptcy for Mermod; they could not compete profitably in a market dominated by Symphonion, Polyphon, and Regina, all of whom could produce comparably sized boxes at much lower cost, most of which were musically superior to the Stella product. Stellas do have a nice tone quality, but their music arranger was less talented than that of Regina or Polyphon.

Due to a design flaw, Stellas tend to break the top four or five treble teeth frequently (in both combs), and one rarely encounters machines which do not have at least a few of them missing. The problem occurs when the flat discs (no projections) get wear grooves in their undersides and the star wheels get caught and jam at a position where there are no note holes intended. This instantly snaps off teeth, and reduces the value of the music box.

Many Stellas are found with a metal tag inscribed “Jacot & Sons, Union Square, NY” affixed to the inner case. Jacot was the U.S. distributor of Mermod products for the latter years of the 19th century. They even published a booklet of music box repair instructions, and sold repair parts for a variety of both cylinder and disc boxes, including sections of comb teeth, all manner of gears, screws, tools, pin wire, etc. Jacot & Sons are best known today for their patented “Jacot Safety Check”, a device attached to the large cylinder gear which prevented a “run” in case the governor gear train was upset. For this reason, one almost never finds a Mermod Cylinder music box of the late period (1885 to 1902) with a stripped cylinder.

p4A.com acknowledges Reg Smith of Sublime Harmony Restorations, Athens, Georgia, for information in this note.