The Music Box Journal
We are very proud of our internationally acclaimed journal, The Music Box.
Published four times a year, each full-colour edition of up to 40 pages features a wide variety of topics. Such as instruments of specific or novel interest, research, collecting tips, and restoration techniques, many by world-recognised experts in their respective field.
The Journal carries news about the Society’s current events including information about our own auctions, international mechanical music events, and news from other mechanical music organisations. We also report on visits made by members to collections, museums and other places of interest, as well as featuring stories on the joy that mechanical instruments have brought to people over the years.
Volume 31, number 5, Spring 2024
Features
- Zacharie Raingo – Musical Box Maker?
- Clues to Dating Boxes
- A Vienna-Made Special Box
- A Rare Clock-Base Movement
Volume 29, number 8, Winter 2020
Features
- A Singing Bird Box
- Cementing Cylinders – the Prague-Vienna Method
- A Rubber Band Musical Box
- Mechanical Music and the Great War
- The Humble Player Piano and the Great War
- A Gothic Musical Clock
- Ephemera Matters: Clarification or Confusion over the Savory Conundrum
- The DAVID MISSILIER Cousins
- Disc Musical Box Update
The very first issue of The Music Box, Number 1, Winter 1962.
The Society maintains a PDF archive of journals, all the way back to the inaugral issue of 1962.
Typewritten and roneo copied, member’s interest in mechanical musical instruments is unchanged. However, the journals provide a fascinating insight into the language and social mannerisms of the past.
From the 1964 article on How to clean a musical box we learn:
Heavy rusting [to steel parts] can be tackled by immersing the pieces in a strong solution of potassium cyanide for a few minutes, rinsing in warm water, then immersing in caustic soda for a short while.
Today, we may say “don’t try this at home”, but back in the day it was just “Keep both solutions well stoppered as they are both very dangerous”!
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