Musical Box: A History and Collector's Guide

Arthur Ord-Hume's earlier book Collecting Musical Boxes quickly established itself as the best introduction to the subject. In this new book, a very much larger, more comprehensive and more profusely illustrated work, he tells the detailed story of the birth of the musical box and its development from a charming novelty to an instrument capable of serious musical interpretation. Written by a worldwide authority on automatic musical instruments, the book is the fruit of more than thirty years' study of musical boxes and their history. It traces the progress of the musical box during the nineteenth century and shows how it reached its peak of perfection round about the time of the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, while its peak of production came much later with the mass production of the disc musical box in the late 1880's and 1890's. Arthur Ord-Hume argues that much of what has up till now been accepted as the early history of the musical box may not be altogether accurate, and he offers evidence to suggest that the very first comb-playing musical movements were around as early as 1750. The book concludes with the most comprehensive biological listing of makers and patentees of musical boxes ever attempted and an appendix illustrating tune sheets, accompanied by a list of the makers who used them, which together will enable the collector to identify many boxes previously virtually unidentifiable.