A musical box is a mechanical musical instrument. It started with the invention of the 'music comb' In the late eighteenth century. This is a comb shaped device which is made from steel then hardened and tempered to produce a number of 'springy' teeth varying in length from short to long. The teeth are plucked by pins set into a revolving cylinder. As each tooth is plucked it produces a musical note. The note produced by each tooth is determined by, amongst other things, the length of that tooth. The pins in the cylinder are arranged in such a way that a melody arises from the comb as the cylinder turns. In this way it was possible to 'record' music and produce it at any time and as often as desired. This was the forerunner to the gramophone.
Many of these cylinder musical boxes were produced especially in Switzerland. as they evolved, other instruments such as bells, drums, castanets and even small organ pipes were added to the boxes. They were also operated by pins on the cylinder. musical boxes were built into bird cages, jewelry boxes, boxes with dancing dolls and many other things.
In 1885 the disc playing musical box was invented. A special technique was developed to punch projections onto a steel disc and these were used, instead of the pins on a cylinder, to pluck the comb. It was now possible to buy a selection of discs and listen to a lot of music instead of the limited repertoire of the cylinder box. Large numbers of these were produced but sadly most have been scrapped. There are however, quite a lot still in existence held in museums and private collections. They are often in poor condition. There are many more that have been relocated to the loft or the garden shed having been used as children's playthings or suffered from attempted, unskilled repairs. musical boxes are extremely sensitive and delicate devices but in the right hands, even these badly damaged, sad old machines may be brought back to life.
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