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When the reindeer are in need of a rest, Santa uses his plane to get around in. The Tin Santa Clause musical plane is about 10½ inches long and 6½ inches high, with a wingspan of about 10 inches. This is a sea blue bi-plane with metal snowflakes painted white on the wings and fuselage. Also on the fuselage is a wintry snowscape complete with snowmen. Santa has on his traditional red suit and black belt, but this time he also has his flying goggles on. In his left hand is a handheld golden Christmas bell and with his mouth open it’s as if he is yelling, “Merry Christmas To All”. When this musical plane is GENTLY wound it plays “Here Comes Santa Claus”, as it does so the propeller turns around very slowly. Please Do Not Over Wind. Select this link to view our Music Boxes.
Note: Do Not Over Wind. Over winding will lock or damage the music box mechanism.
What is a Music Box?
The music box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder so as to strike the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called “Carillons a Musique.” Some of the more complex boxes also have tiny drum and small bells, in addition to the metal comb. Alec Templeton, an avid collector of music boxes and a professional concert musician, once noted that the tone of a musical box is unlike that of any musical instrument. Select this link to view our Unique Christmas Gifts.
History of the Music Box.
The original snuff box music boxes were tiny containers which could fit into a gentleman’s waist coat pocket. The musical boxes could be any size from that of a hatbox to a large piece of furniture though most were tabletop sized. They were usually powered by clockwork and originally produced by artisan watchmakers. Select this link to view our Christmas Figurines. For most of the 19th century the bulk of music box production was concentrated in Switzerland, building upon a strong watch making tradition. The first music box factory was opened Switzerland in 1815 by Jeremie Recordon and Samuel Junod. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States. The cylinders were normally made of metal and powered by a spring. In some of the costlier models, the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which was perfected by Metert, of Geneva in 1879. In some exceptional models there were four springs, to provide continuous play for up to three hours. The first boxes at the end of the 18th century made use of metal disks. The switch over to cylinders seems to have been complete after the Napoleonic wars. In the last decades of the 19th century however, mass produced models such as the Polyphon and others all made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. Select this link to view our Collectible Santa Claus Gifts.
The term musical box is also applied to clockwork devices where a removable metal disk or cylinder was used only in a programming function without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb. Instead, the cylinder or disk worked by actuating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. Some devices could do both at the same time and were often combinations of player pianos and musical boxes, such as the Orchestrion. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th most musical boxes were gradually replaced by Player pianos, which were more versatile and loud and also melodious, when kept tuned and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices. Series production rapidly disappeared and all the important companies closed their doors. A few of the original ones found new markets. Located near Lake Neuchatel Reue is one of the last of the Swiss survivors making music boxes of all sizes and shapes, with or without automatons in imitation of models of the previous centuries or in a modern style with clear acrylic sides to see the mechanical operation. Select this link to view our Collectible Santa Figurines.