MUSIC BOX AND CLOCKWORKS CONSERVATION

No other instrument sounds like a musical box. It is unique amongst automatic instruments. I presently work for clients throughout the eastern U.S. and some in Europe.

Musical Boxes and furniture are where I started soon after University as a hobby in Ohio, my first being a Paillard Mandoline box. After reading all the available literature, and step by step phone consultations, I got it cleaned but barely running. It would take me the next 10 years to really perfect the nuances of these extremely delicate instruments. Governor work, re-dampering, pin straightening, comb repairs, and adjusting a box for optimum sound clarity require far more specialization than a clock repairman can achieve without further training.

I try to spend several months a year in Italy working with artisans and restorers- gilding, chasing, casting, glasswork, scagliola and micromosaics, studying conservation and working. I maintain workrooms in Florence on Via del Terzolle. There are enough clock men or woodworkers in Italy, but no specialists musical box restorers in the entire country. As a result, I am developing contacts and working there as well. We are luckier here in the US and Northern Europe. There are some older restorers in many regions who you already may be familiar with.

Music boxes as a collectible antique have not really appreciated in years and that is not likely to change in the future. The only way to really enhance the value of a box is with restoration. The difference in value at auction on a restored functioning box and a dirty one are surprisingly large. A box that might sell for $5-600 can sell for over $2000 when restored.

Restoration is laborious, dirty and highly delicate. Tolerances are gauged to the thousandth of an inch. All parts are cleaned and polished by hand. A music box movement cannot be dip cleaned like a clock; too many steel parts to rust and the hollow cylinders are filled with pitch and pumice that can slump slowly and often need labor. All metal parts to every screw are non-standard- they must be machined fresh or worked from rough parts still made in Switzerland. Quill dampers are still chicken quills and shellac. Wire dampers are replaced and fitted to work for years. And most difficult of all, comb teeth can be replaced to sound as clear and in tune as an original. A good restoration can take weeks.

All cases are restored precisely as the box would have appeared new- with great attention paid to using only historically correct techniques and materials. I take 3 days to french polish a case alone. If it's broken, the inner glass lid will have an old piece of glass and not new. Copies of original company literature and an explanation of your box's specific history and origin are supplied with each box. Case hardware is polished and gold lacquered, screws are re-blued, replacement keys are available too and I can even provide a custom made table for a special family piece.

I hope you enjoy the You-Tube videos and Flikr pictures I hope to post in the near future.