1796: Antoine Favre, a clockmaker from Geneva, replaces the bells by combs with pre tuned metallic notes, which produce more varied and more precise sounds. Numerous musical objects are produced
The cylinders were normally made of metal and powered by a spring. In some of the costlier models, the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which was perfected by Metert of Geneva in 1879. In some exceptional models, there were four springs, to provide continuous play for up to three hours
1870: A German inventor creates a musical box with discs, therefore allowing an easier and more frequent change of tunes. It is also the golden years of automata. Already known in Egypt, they will be improved to become real works of art
14th century: In Flanders, an ingenious bell ringer invents a cylinder with pins which operates cams, which then hit the bells
1811: The first musical boxes are produced in Sainte-Croix; an industry which surpasses the watchmaking and lace industries, and rapidly brings renown to the town. At this time, the musical-box industry represents 10% of Switzerland’s export
“. According to Charles B. 9th century: In Baghdad, Iraq, the Banū Mūsā brothers, a trio of Persian inventors, produced “the earliest known mechanical musical instrument”, in this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically, which they described in their Book of Ingenious Devices. Fowler, this “cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century
Early 20th century: The invention of the phonograph, the First World War and the economic crisis in the 20’s bring down Sainte-Croix’s main industry and make the luxury musical box completely disappear
A musical box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to strike the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique. Alec Templeton, an avid collector of music boxes and a professional concert musician, once noted that the tone of a musical box is unlike that of any musical instrument . Some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and small bells, in addition to the metal comb
The musical boxes could have any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. Most of them were tabletop specimens though. By the end of the 19th century, some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States. For most of the 19th century, the bulk of musical box production was concentrated in Switzerland, building upon a strong watchmaking tradition. They were usually powered by clockwork and originally produced by artisan watchmakers. The first musical box factory was opened there in 1815 by Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod. The original snuff boxes were tiny containers which could fit into a gentleman’s waistcoat pocket
1780: The mechanical singing bird is invented by the Jaquet-Droz brothers, clockmakers from La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 1848, the manufacturing of the singing birds is improved by Blaise Bontems in his Parisian workshop, to the point where it has remained unchanged to this day. Barrel organs become more popular
1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph, which has important consequences for the musical-box industry, especially around the end of the century
Now modern automation is helping bring music box prices back down. Escalating labour costs increased the price and further reduced volume. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, most musical boxes were gradually replaced by player pianos, which were louder and more versatile and melodious, when kept tuned, and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices
Some devices could do both at the same time and were often combinations of player pianos and musical boxes, such as the Orchestrion. Instead, the cylinder worked by actuating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. The term “musical box” is also applied to clockwork devices where a removable metal disk or cylinder was used only in a “programming” function without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb
Many kinds of musical box movements are available to the home craft person, locally or through online retailers
The cheap, small windup music box movements to add a bit of music to mass-produced jewelry boxes and novelty items are now produced in countries with low labour costs. Collectors prize surviving musical boxes from the 19th century and the early 20th century as well as new music boxes being made today in several countries
1892: Gustave Brachhausen, who had been involved with the manufacturer of Polyphon disk musical boxes in Germany, sails for America to establish the Regina Music Box Company in New Jersey. Regina, whose boxes are renowned among collectors for their tone, becomes a success and some 100,000 are sold before sales cease in 1921
The very first boxes at the end of the 18th century made use of metal disks. In the last decades of the 19th century, however, mass-produced models such as the Polyphon and others all made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. The switchover to cylinders seems to have been complete after the Napoleonic wars. The cylinder-based machines rapidly became a minority
1865 Charles Reuge, a watchmaker from the Val-de-Travers, settles in Sainte-Croix and begins making pocket watches with musical movements