My Symphonion Nr. 4, a 27 cm disc playing musical box, came with two
discs so I acquired more at auction from the collection of the late
Ralph Heinz.  These came in a pressed cardboard band box.  Not being
immersed in music box lore and hardware, I had never seen a box for
discs, before nor since.

It is of 1.5 mm pressed cardboard, 32 cm diameter, 8 cm high.  The
side wall is a simple band wrapped with a narrower band.  The top and
bottom are lipped over like jar lids, butting against the narrower
band.  The two bands and the bottom are combined permanently with flat
staples about 4 mm wide and 13 mm long.  Four handle or cord sleeves
are at quarter points.  The lid is embossed on top with an ornate
pattern including a panel for 105 x 170 mm label.  The back and sides
are flat, not embossed.  It appears it had a light coating of shellac
or varnish.

I can just see the neat Reichspost carrier bringing this cord-wrapped
glossy package to the door and someone untying the cords, opening the
lid to be amazed at the shiny shellacked discs -- perhaps a present from
a proud father, in Leipzig on business, to the whole family.

I am curious about two things for which I would appreciate replies.

(1) The label has a printed border with a narrow block at the top for
"Absender" and the rest seems to be blank.  The sender was Bernhard
something and the recipient Leo something in Posen which was in
Prussia.  It would be good if someone who is better at recognizing
place names and old script could decipher the remaining smudges and
tell me what the names are.

(2) The second thing are three labels which are about 40 to 70 mm
squarish and seem to have been on translucent paper.  They bear large
numerals in bold print.  Two use black ink and one a bright red-orange.
The largest has a place name of Posen ... below the number 722, one is
smaller and reads 113, and the orange one is partly covered by the one
for Posen.  I am guessing these are postal routing stickers.  I suppose
Prussia was pretty well organized one hundred years ago and could have
had a postal routing scheme.  They could have been little else!

Yes, I guess there is a third thing.  How would cord be threaded
through the bands to secure and carry this box?  They certainly would
not have gone to the trouble of installing the loops if the cords were
just to dangle from them.

I include photos of the box and its labels, and hope this piques the
curiosity of German speaking historians.

Karl Petersen
Boise, Idaho

 [ Thanks, Karl, I'll place the photos at the MMD Pictures site,
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Pictures/index.html 
 [ -- Robbie