Bob Loesch wrote:

> I've an identical movement that I bought last summer from Nancy
> Fratti (Thanks, Nancy!), that came with some blank books and a punch.
> Neat toy, and an all-around nice box, despite its "Made In China"
> label.  Actually, the movement is a Sankyo, made in Japan, and has
> quite nice tone.

I am pretty sure that Bob is describing the instrument I have in my
possession for already 12 years.  It was for sale then in several shops
in the Netherlands.  It is indeed a 20-note instrument (C-A without
sharps or flats )-: for the music marker!

These instruments were sold without any case around it (just the
mechanism) and without any motor attached to it.  They have to be
cranked by hand using three intermediate wheels.  The instrument came
with pre-printed cardboard strips and a punch.

I have fixed the little miracle in a wooden box, on a thin wooden
resonator and the sound is very pleasing.  We use to sing along with
the machine, playing all possible Christmas carols.  They are really
fun to make.

If you ever visit the museum "from musical clock to street organ"
in Utrecht, Netherlands, you will find there a room with tens of these
instruments.  Visiting children can punch their own melodies there!

There must have been still another model of this music box, with at
least a sharp and a flat per octave, but I never succeeded in buying
one of these (that would have been a real miracle-box!)

Cheers, and best wishes for 1999 from Holland,

Hans van Oost