Croix, Switzerland. Previously, all music boxes were produced through smaller cottage-industry operations using the skills of different craftspeople to assemble a complete product. These early musical contraptions were an expensive luxury item favored by the aristocracy, primarily playing hymns and operatic songs. Later versions added mechanical automata to their complex musical tunes for increasingly magical effects. By the late 1800s, music boxes were built with removable cylinders whose tunes could be changed by replacing specially designed drawers. Finally, in 1885, Paul Lochmann created a music box called the “Symphonion” using a flat metal disc that rotated on a turntable. These metal discs could be easily swapped out, much like a vinyl record. Pop music was suddenly affordable and immediately accessible; within weeks of a Broadway show’s debut, its most memorable musical themes were available on music-box discs. Gustave Brachhausen, foreman of the Lochmann firm, split with the company and created his own business manufacturing the “Polyphon,” perhaps the most famous disc-operated music box. In 1892, Brachhausen moved to the United States where he opened the Regina Music Box Company in Jersey City, New Jersey. Though Regina produced its own mechanical works, Brachhausen still imported discs from the Polyphon factory in Leipzig.
Selected Products
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Music Box Godfather Theme
Music Box Dancer Jewelry Box
Music Box Mechanism Sankyo
Music Box Robot
Music Box Boys
Music Box 3D Wooden Puzzle
Music Box Gothic
Music Box Germany
Music Box Children
Music Box Unfinished
Music Box Love
Music Box Women
Music Box Train
Canon In D Music Box
Cot Mobile Music Box
Music Box Owl On Branch
Fur Elise Music Box
Music Box Once Upon A December
Music Box For Men
Music Box Sets
Music Box Original Crankshaft
Wizard Of Oz Music Box
Swiss Music Boxes
Cylinder Music Box
Music Box Canon
Music Box I Love You A Bushel And A Peck
Orange Tree Music Box
Music Box Wind Beneath My Wings
Music Box New
Owl Music Box
Music Box 72 Canon
Horse Music Box
Music Box Over The Rainbow
Music Box Antique
Music Box Vivaldi Spring
Music Box Lot