PIANO-FORTE GRAND FORMAT OVERTURE MUSIC BOX. You know what you are looking at the moment you see (and hear) this masterpiece of Swiss engineering and craftsmanship. With 230 teeth on two combs, playing in a Piano-Forte format, on a 17″ x 4″ cylinder with many thousands of pins, instruments such as this were commissioned on special order for the rich and famous of the day. The four operatic overtures from Weber, Auber and Rossini are shown in the picture of the original silver tune sheet. Each selection plays for about two minutes, and the complexity of the musical arrangements is almost unbelievable. Serial #44266 dates this to approximately 1870, before the advent of electricity for lighting, running machinery, etc. One can only wonder how such a marvelously engineered product could have been produced, and how long it must have taken to individually drill each and every hole for the cylinder pins. The movement was restored about 7 years ago by the (now retired) renowned Dave Beck. The extensively ornate, inlaid casework was professionally restored in Canada around that time as well. The end result is a music box that looks, and plays, as it did just out of the factory. We have not yet made any sound recordings, as no ordinary camera can capture the essence and quality of the complex arrangements. We were able to have some high-quality HD recordings made of our other Nicole Grand Format a few years ago, but the professional service we used is not currently available. What else can we say about this, the finest music box we have ever offered, and one that rarely comes up for sale anywhere in the world. We are a leading world-wide dealer and specialist in mechanical music, clocks and phonographs and stand by what we sell 100%. We have many hundreds of items for sale at: musicaltreasuresofmiami. Musical Treasures of Miami. 2940 West Lake Vista Circle, Davie, FL 33328. Antique Music Boxes – Clocks – Phonographs. The item “NICOLE FRERES PIANO FORTE GRAND FORMAT OVERTURE MUSIC BOX” is in sale since Monday, February 05, 2018. This item is in the category “Collectibles\Decorative Collectibles\Music Boxes\Pre-1900″. The seller is “musicaltreasuresofmiami” and is located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This item can be shipped worldwide.
- Country/Region of Manufacture: Switzerland