As Miss Miho Matsuo wrote, music boxes playing Chinese tunes are not
rare at all.  A very large number was exported from Europe to China,
especially around the turn of the century, but also before.  I have seen
a good small keywound Lecoultre with 3 Chinese tunes, amidst them the
anthem Sin Fa which is very common in these boxes.

The French firm L'Epee seems to have made quite a lot of them.  They were
usually rather coarse, more for pleasure of the eyes than for the ears,
although some play well.  They ranged from the very cheap box (3 or 4
tunes, about 10 inches long) to the biggest orchestral boxes, sometimes
on matching tables.

Very few snuff boxes seem to have been made, but a lot of very rich
musical watches or singing birds were made, especially during the first
half of the 19th century.  Many music boxes for China were equipped with
bells, drums, dancing dolls, and reeds.  Some were sold with singing
birds inside, usually a combination of reeds and real small wooden pipes.

When I went to China in 1974, I saw scores of music boxes playing Chinese
music in the warehouses of the official export corporations.  The problem
is that many were in bad condition, and it seems they are very difficult
to sell to Western ears ...

Actually, some boxes with Chinese tunes appear from time to time in
auction houses, but the auctioneer fears to announce what kind of music
they play.  It must be said that Chinese music (very diatonic scale) may
in fact be pleasant to our ears (some kind of joyful tunes), whereas
Indian or Arabian music is rather strange on music boxes, which do not
accommodate easily the endless repetition of ornaments and quarter tones.

I would like to know if there is today a real market for such boxes (in
Japan, Formosa, or Hong Kong, perhaps), let aside the pleasure of having
an exotic box in one's collection.

Best regards,

Philippe Rouille (Paris, France)
rouille@cnam.fr
http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica_mecanica/