-- An Unusual Opportunity to Acquire Rare Mechanical Music --

Those of you attending the MBSI Annual Meeting MART in Morristown,
New Jersey, next week, will have the unusual opportunity of seeing
and possibly purchasing some very fine quality and rare mechanical
music pieces from our over 40 years of collecting.  They are
available because we are downsizing from our house to an apartment.

All items are fully restored, no teeth missing or replaced and are
in essentially perfect condition.  Included are items such as:

- A very fine early key wind (28000 series) Nicole Freres musical
box with an unusually well selected operatic program, original tune
sheet and original key, fine orchestration and unusually strong tone
on all eight tunes.  Circa 1847.

- Rare and exceptional Nicole Freres "Overture" musical box with
fat cylinder, 3-1/4" x 12-1/2".  Very fine operatic music as listed
on the original tune sheet, 240 teeth in one-piece comb, original
winding crank.  Circa 1855.

- Unusual Sevres porcelain singing bird jardiniere by Bontems, circa
1870.  The full sized bird is perched on top amidst silk flowers, 
song continuous or intermittent, fine paintings on two sides of bowl.

- Several very early cartel music boxes, in plain cases, some with
sectional combs and most with original tune sheets.  One is by the
very rare maker Alibert.

- and two museum quality, and extremely rare mechanical music items:

(1) A very rare fusee-driven clockwork mechanical barrel organ signed
Davrainville, Paris, 1836, #582, with five perfect spirally-pinned
barrels in the original wooden storage cases.  The organ with 26 keys
is encased in a fine and original mahogany case (also marked #582)
22" wide by 12" deep by 24" high, with original tune sheets inside
the back cover.

Davrainville was, for almost 50 years, the premier mechanical organ
maker in France.  He produced approximately 900 pieces of which there
are presently 23 Davrainville organs still known to exist, most of them
in museums in France and in the Netherlands (Utrecht).  There are only
a few in private hands -- this is one of them.

(2) An exceptionally rare, possibly unique, 18th Century Scottish
musical tea caddy with purpose-built fusee-driven single-tooth musical
movement in the base playing two tunes, the words of which, by Robert
Burns, are written on the original tea boxes within the caddy.  There
is also a hand-blown glass tea mixing bowl.  The entire piece is covered
with black ink drawings including the fuil cover with an original of a
complex tavern scene.  Each tooth when made, was labeled as to tuning.
Circa end of the eighteenth century.

I know of no similar piece in any of the mechanical music museums that
I know of, world-wide.

Frank Metzger
fmtz@aol.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]