Oddities, Rarities and Penny Arcades

[Starkton]

I found this most interesting article by Rick Crandall. Ever heard of an Automatic Chime Bells coin-in-the-slot machine, the Berliner Multiphone, Mills Illustrated Song Machine with disc phonograph, the Cail-O-Phone, Rosenfield's Illustrated Song Machine, or the Chair-Phone?

"So if you want to see some wild music machines, read on":

http://www.rickcrandall.net/articles/14 ... Arcade.pdf

[JohnM]

Great article! Thanks! Are you familiar with the Skelly Concertophone and Gabel's Automatic Entertainer?

[Tinkerbell]

I found the musical bicycle of interest to me, so I did a little Googling about it.

While there was not a lot to be found online, a newspaper article that did surface provided a tad more information but seemed to indicate that the inventor was from London, and not Chicago.

Did cause me to wonder why the disparity over what seems an unimportant detail? (Not to disparage those from either Chicago or London, so my apologies if it sounds that way...)

Here's a snip of the newspaper article, (and the text since it's hard to read in the image), if anyone else is interested.

Does make one wonder if this, or any of the other oddities (like the Automatic Chime Bells) still exist anywhere...

[Starkton]

Great article! Thanks! Are you familiar with ... Gabel's Automatic Entertainer?

Here is Crandall's article about the "Diary Disclosures of John Gabel. A Pioneer in Automatic Music":

http://www.rickcrandall.net/articles/13 ... tainer.pdf

[barnettrp21122]

VERY interesting article about John Gabel and his struggles and success with his "Entertainer" machine! It's odd that although it was marketed up until 1928 so few seem to exist. Thanks for posting this!
Bob

[Jerry B.]

Very interesting post. I never dreamed that such things ever existed. The musical bicycle was incredible and as a phono/bicycle collector, I have a new quest! Thanks, Jerry

[Henry]

Actually, I'm surprised that no bike manufacturer ever offered a radio accessory. It would have been easy to install one in those big horn housings on the old fat-tire bikes of my youth ('40s-'50s)---well, easy, that is, after the transistor radio was developed. Tube radios might have been too heavy/large/fragile. On second thought, maybe somebody *did* offer a bike radio? Anybody know?

[Phonofreak]

Thank you for sharing the articles. I never knew such machines even existed. There is always something new to learn in this hobby.
Harvey Kravitz

[AllWoundUp]

Actually, I'm surprised that no bike manufacturer ever offered a radio accessory. It would have been easy to install one in those big horn housings on the old fat-tire bikes of my youth ('40s-'50s)---well, easy, that is, after the transistor radio was developed. Tube radios might have been too heavy/large/fragile. On second thought, maybe somebody *did* offer a bike radio? Anybody know?

From The American Bicycle by Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd, 1995:

bike1.jpg (86.8 KiB) Viewed 1768 times

[estott]

I think the scarcity of such instruments as the Illustrated Song Machine is because most (if not all) were not sold outright to the exhibitor. It was a common thing for mechanical pianos and the like to be long-term leased to customers by a route operator- the good point (for the exhibitor) was that thew operator would service the machine and change the music regularly. The bad point (for us) was that as a machine became old or obsolete the exhibitor was urged to trade it for something new. The old machines would often be stripped for usable material and junked (coin pianos tended to survive a bit longer, I think because they were pianos- one Seeburg electric piano ended up in it's owners home where the children were given lessons on it)