I thought Charlotte Wathey might like to know a little more about
Heller.  Johann Heinrich Heller was born in 1830 and died in 1906,
thus he would have been about 43 years old at the time of her great
grandmother's visit to his shop in Bern in September 1873.

Heller apparently started out as a maker of musical box blanks in the
Canton of Bern, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.  Blanks were
the basic parts of a musical box before the musical arrangements were
pinned on the cylinder and the comb tuned to suit the arrangements.

One of the musical box makers who purchased his wares was a firm called
J (for Jules) Jaques-Adank et Cie of Saint-Croix in the French-speaking
part of Switzerland.  Saint-Croix lies about 55 miles away, high in the
mountains on one side of Lake Neuchâtel, with Bern on the other side of
the lake.  Heller asked Gustave-Jaques Adank to help him organise
musical box manufacture in Bern.

Heller placed adverts in Ste.-Croix newspapers for skilled justifiers
and decorators.  The first of these ensured a musical box was in good
playing order and the second decorated the casework.  He expanded to
Interlaken and exhibited at many international exhibitions such as
Paris (1863), Vienna (1873), Töplitz (Germany, 1879), Melbourne
(Australia, 1880), Zurich (1883), Nice (1883/4), Krems (Austria, 1884).
He ceased production in 1907.

Chapuis[1] also referred to Gustave-Jacques (a misspelling for Jaques)
Adank in an oblique context for 1878:

  "... the musical-box manufacturers (of Ste.-Croix) convened to
  determine if there might be any way of preventing Gustave-Jacques
  Adank from going to Bern to set up a factory under the patronage
  of J. H. Heller..."

Other than this statement little is known about Gustave, but it is
in the context of major taxation and organisational changes affecting
production in Ste. Croix.

Heller was certainly a contentious character, in a report quoted in
an article by Eduard C. Saluz as "The notorious swindler"[2].  Adolf
Karrer made the remark in the year of your great-grandmother's visit,
1873 -- quite a coincidence!

Heller was the representative of several German orchestrion
manufacturers and often put his name on them as if he was the maker.
The late H.A.V. Bulleid pointed out that Heller was an agent for
musical boxes from the 1860s, adding his name to tune sheets as if he
was the maker.  These tunes sheets are listed in his book, "Musical Box
Tune Sheets," numbers 177 (circa 1862), 324 (circa 1870), 254 (circa
1880), 128 (circa 1886), 151 (circa 1886) and 176 (circa 1891) on a
movement made by Cuendet.

Tune sheets 151, 177 and 324 are the same type used by both Greiner and
Brémond in Geneva except that all reference to Geneva has been removed.
Bulleid suggested that he marketed both these maker's musical boxes.
One can imagine that he was not perceived kindly by 'the competition'
in the aggressive manner that he marketed other makers' goods!

An excellent book in German, "Klangkunst"[3], written by Prof. Saluz,
highlights a number of interesting points, stating that evidence shows
Heller was active in the production of many different types of music
works from 1866 such as "splendid musical works with bells, heavenly
voices, expression, etc."  There were also snuffboxes and Swiss chalet
musical boxes, some with interchangeable cylinders.  Serial numbers
ranged up to 15,838.

Older examples were typical of Geneva manufacture with the movements
fixed by screws front and back; later ones followed Ste.-Croix practice
and were fixed down by internal screws.

On the basis of the tune sheets, Bulleid suspected that movements were
obtained from Geneva before 1878.  After that date, at the 1883 Zurich
exhibition Heller advertised all sorts of items: purses, beer glasses,
small Swiss chalets, musical chairs.  The firm became an agent for
many different types of musical instruments such as street organs and
orchestrions.  Thus your letter adds so much realism in listing most
of these items for the year 1873.

Adolf Karrer and his family, as well as others, obviously were
either afraid of, jealous of or otherwise despised Heller.  The Karrer
enterprise was one of hardship, competition and near bankruptcy
although it survived well into the 20th century by diversifying its
products.  Heller seems to have been another of the few survivors, the
business carrying on into the mid-1900s by his son.

Paul Bellamy
Kent, UK

References:

[1] Chapuis: "The History of the Musical Box," trans. Roesch; MBSI
    publication, 1980, reprinted 1992; Chapter XVIII, page 186.

[2] Eduard C. Saluz: "Der Musikdosenhändler Johann Heinrich Heller
    aus Bern - eine Studie zum Musikdosenhandel um 1880" ("The music
    box merchant Johann Heinrich Heller of Bern - a study of the
    music box trade circa 1880," in Das Mechanische Musikinstrument,
    the German Society Journal, No. 85, December 2002, p. 11.

[3] Eduard C. Saluz: "Klangkunst" (Sound art), exhibition catalog,
    National Museum in Zurich, 1996.

 [ A new book by Paul Bellamy, "The Music Makers of Switzerland",
 [ is awaiting funding for publication.  -- Robbie