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Creating wooden keepsake boxes, children’s jewelry boxes, inlaid music boxes, and other types of musical movements can be a joy, especially when one is doing it himself or herself. However, there is an important step to consider when putting the music box together; it is choosing the movement accessories. These accessories include shafts/extenders, animation, turntables, winding keys, accessory shaft washers, cranks, rocking action, and musical mobile holder cases.

Shaft and Extenders

Left-handed shafts typically are placed into a special accessory hole on the side of an 18-note key-wind musical movement. When used, it becomes permanent. The key extenders extend the length of the winding key.

Animation

The 18-note key-wind musical movement can be fitted with several animation accessories. For example, the waggie shaft, covered with an accordion sleeve, allows it to rotate inside the sleeve instead of inside the figure, while the circular motion rod can be easily bent to create a neat orbital flying motion. There is a flat pad on the rod’s tip where figurines can be glued.

Turntables

Turntables typically come in clear plastic, opaque plastic, and metal. The left-handed turntable can be used to fit the left-handed shaft or shaft extender. Turntable can be used as winding keys as well when figurines are glued to them.

Winding Keys

All music boxes that are created must have a winding key unless a turntable is used in its place. Winding keys typically are in brass or nickel plated finish and come in different sizes. Typical winding keys include the T-bar, Triangle, and Miniature. There even is a childproof safety winding key that when installed becomes a permanent part of the music box. If one has a child who will have access to the music box, this would be a good fixture to have.

Accessory Shaft Washers

These washers are placed on the outside of the music movement housing. This would be a good thing to utilize if one uses plush toys or dolls as part of the music box. It helps prevent fibers from being caught in the accessory hole and getting wrapped around the shaft.

Cranks

A crank is a music accessory that produces motions such as swinging, pumping, sawing, rocking, and up and down motions.

Rocking Action

If one were looking into making music boxes with figurines such as rocking horses and chairs, this would be the perfect music movement accessory.

Musical Mobile Holder Cases

The musical mobile holder cases would be just right for a musical mobile for a baby’s crib. These movements and holder cases usually are not sold together, but separately. This holder case would work well using an 18-note key-wind musical movement.

Creating music boxes takes special care and also are fun to do. Whether it is a wooden keepsake box, children’s jewelry box, or any other type of whimsical box, why not create your first one today?

Copyright 2006 Monique Hawkins

Established in May of 2005, http://www.My-Music-Box.com is a music box gift store specializing in products such as inlaid ballerina music boxes for ballerina rooms d

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Ballerina Music Boxes, inlaid music boxes, musical jewelry boxes, cylinder music boxes, and antique music boxes are delicate and beautiful. As most music box and antique collectors know, in order to preserve them, sometimes repair and restoration is needed. For this special work, it is important to choose a company that is reputable and an expert in this area. This is the second part of an interview with music box and mechaical insturment repair and restoration expert, Mr. Jim Weir

Jim does all kinds of antique musical box repairs and restoration. His work includes comb repairs, releading and tuning, dampering, cylinder repairing, and organ bridge work. Jim also offers all manner of musical box work on disc and cylinder music boxes..Let’s listen as he continues to give us an inside peek of this unique business.

6. What if your least favorite part of running your business? Your favorite part?

“Paperwork. Dealing with taxes and Customs (although I’ve got quite good dealing with Customs and Carriers). My favorite part? There is a satisfaction in finally getting a job finished; there’s also a fair amount of satisfaction in finally getting paid.”

7. What are some of your favorite music box and collectible pieces and why?

“A 26″ consul model Stella. It belonged to the late Bruce Devine and literally arrived in pieces (it had been dropped from a crane while being loaded). Originally Bruce gave it to one of my trade customers, who passed it on to me. Then my trade customer ducked out of the deal, and I ended up working direct for Bruce. It was an `interesting’ experience and quite a steep learning curve. At the end though, the box did sound good. Excellent tune arrangements.”

8. Is there any interesting history associated with some of your pieces?

“I don’t collect musical boxes; without being funny I genuinely cannot afford to. Some of the pieces I’ve worked on have had `history’; as an example the Stella referred to above. Another would be a rare long and short pin Forte-Piano box (maker unknown) I overhauled for a customer in France. It had a silver presentation plaque in the lid; as far as I could gather it was presented to a Mayor in 1847 for some kind of `service to the townspeople’. I’m not up on French politics, but the middle of the 19th century were turbulent times. One of the nicest stories is a box I fully restored for an old lady in Edinburgh. She was in her 70’s. The box had been in her family since new, and she had last heard it play when she was a child.”

9. What important advice or tips would you give to someone who would like to start a business such as yours either online or offline?

“I wouldn’t. Things move faster now that we have the Internet. To get fully involved in this kind of work takes time, which the whole `I want it NOW’ approach of the Internet doesn’t favor. I was lucky in that I had a skill with clocks that I was able to sharpen and direct to music box work. If I had to give advice, I’d say by all means get involved with music boxes, or whatever else begins to drive you, but try to maintain a backup. The wisest thing? Learn that `quitting’ is not necessarily a personal failure; it’s recognizing that some choices can turn out to be wrong. There are maybe a few music box repairers who would be happier now if, 30 years ago, they’d sold their lathes, workshop tools etc. and taken up farming. Not me though, I hasten to add.”

10. For those antique and music box collectors looking to find valuable and interesting pieces for their own collections, where would you suggest they go either online or offline? How about those who are just starting a collection?

“Take advice from your friends. Don’t necessarily follow it, but give it some thought. Subscribe to music box sale catalogues, it’s a good way to check what things actually sell for; they often give the hammer price of items from previous sales. Go to music box auctions if you can; not necessarily to buy anything but to observe, to get a feel not just for how much pieces sell for, but for what sells and what doesn’t. Try to figure out why what looked like a nice box didn’t sell. If you’re really interested in buying a specific musical box, either from a dealer, private seller or at auction it can save you a lot of heartache if you get someone who knows what they’re looking at to check the box over and advise you of likely repair costs before you buy it.

A lot of repair costs can be itemized; if a potential customer emailed or wrote to me (even `phoned me) with a good description of a box needing repair, I would do my best to advise them as to how much the repairs could cost before they part up with maybe a lot of money to buy it. I don’t charge for this and neither do most restorers; having given advice we all hope for the work if the customer goes on and buys the box. If the box is a particularly fine example, and likely to be expensive to buy, it’s can be worth paying a restorers time for them to go and check it out at the sellers address. I’ve done this; a collector armed with an itemized potential repair cost of something he’s interested in buying is in a very strong position when it comes to arguing the sale price with the seller”.

Jim ends with saying this about his hopes for the future:

“To bring in more work and pay off the mortgage. Ok, there’s a lot more to life than that but one way or another, the bills still have to be paid. Most of my work to now has come from dealers; what I’m hoping is that by advertising in the MBSI Journal, I’ll attract more work direct from the public. In theory I could put up my public prices, but in practice I cannot, at least not to customers in the USA. They already have to pay shipping costs, and the simple fact is that whether a musical box needs comb work, cylinder work or a full restoration, there’s a top limit to how much most people will pay to have it worked on, irrespective of how long the work takes. People have to make choices; your car’s broke, your washing machine leaks and the antique music box you inherited from your Grandmother squeaks. Which one do you spend your money on? That’s about it really; the sun’s shining and it’s time to get back to the workshop.”

I’d like to personally thank Jim for taking the time to share with us this valuable information about his business as well as letting us get a sneak peak into the world of music box repairs and restoration. Jim Weir can be reached at combwork@aol.com or by telephone/fax at 01144-1575-572647.

Established in May of 2005, http://www.My-Music-Box.com is a music box gift store specializing in products such as inlaid ballerina music boxes for ballerina rooms d

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The music box has a long and interesting history. Long before collectors sought the dresser top music jewelry boxes, inlaid music boxes, and pop up ballerina music boxes that are the popular today, the cylinder or disc driven music box was the entertainment in many homes in the 1800?s. These vintage music boxes, ranging in size, style, and value are still sought today by many collectors of automatic musical instruments.

David Le Coultre first created the cylinder music box in Switzerland. around 1870, while Mermod Fre’res was the largest manufacturer of the cylinder musical instruments in St Crox. Years later the highly collectible disc driven music boxes were also made in France, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other countries.

While there were numerous companies making music boxes, Mermod Fre’res, active during the 1800’s was one of the few who manufactured both a cylinder music box and a disc driven automatic musical instrument. Two of the most popular ones by the company were the “Stella” and “Mira”, made during the late 1890’s, were made of oak in furniture styles popular in the states during that time.

What makes the cylinder music box, inlaid music boxes , and musical snuffboxes, and other types unique is that music results when the teeth of a tuned, steel comb vibrate when plucked by tiny pins protruding from the cylinder. Many collectors today highly value these music boxes and love to add then to their collections. Favorites include those manufactured during the 18th century by Lecoultre, Nicole Fre’res, and Ducommon- Girod.

Making cylinder music boxes was quite the art until 1875. Many craftsmen worked in their homes assembling various parts and then took them to factories to complete.

Up until the Civil War, cylinder music boxes were rather plain. Then, manufacturers began making more elaborate cases with brass, wood inlays, tortoise shell, and mother of pearl.

The years 1890-1914 marked the end of time for large cylinder automatic musical instruments. In his “Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments”, Q. David Bowers states, “The disc-type box, as made by Polyphon, Symphonion, Regina, and others, drove cylinder instruments from the marketplace. Mermod Freres made fine, large cylinder instruments in the 1890’s, but by 1900, World War I ended what was left of the cylinder music box industry.

So ended the age of the cylinder, disc driven music box. However, with careful research and searches, collectors of cylinder music boxes can still possibly find these beautiful music boxes through organizations such MBSI at http://www.mbsi.org and AMICA at http://www.amica.org.

Copyright 2005 Monique Hawkins

Established in May of 2005, http://www.My-Music-Box.com is a music box gift store specializing in products such as inlaid ballerina music boxes for ballerina rooms d

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