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国内拍卖首页 > 齐仕阁Chiswick Auctions > 装饰艺术品、古董艺术品、奢侈品 > Lot 119
A RARE MILLS NOVELTY COMPANY VIOLANO-VIRTUOSO
英国 北京时间
2020年04月28日 开拍 / 2020年04月24日 截止委托
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拍品描述
A RARE MILLS NOVELTY COMPANY VIOLANO-VIRTUOSO the single-violin model, with piano accompaniment, coin operated, in polished mahogany case. Identification number: No. 4138, stamped to frame back, indicating this is a later 1920s model, with G D E A violin tuning and start/stop buttons, piano accompaniment with the Mills Violano decal to piano action rail, roll drive mechanism with period on/rewind switches and motor, violin fingerboard bearing the numerous patent dates, rosin block and wheel-bows, counter-weight shot-filled chambers on extended rods through to the drive mechanism chamber, in rouge-finished and polished case with interior glass panel before the piano hammers, the double adverse-hinged doors to the front with oval-knob pulls, above motor doors flanked by finely tapering and fluted Corinthian column supports, typical hinged plain top as the swell flap, this model comes with twelve additional rolls, spare coins and photocopy of the original manual. Please note: the Violano Virtuoso is a heavy object, weighing about 1100 pounds. The first page of the Violano Virtuoso manual stated that to lift the instrument from the delivery wagon would need "3 good men".. References: Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, Q. David Bowers, 1972, pp.506-525 The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments, Arthur A. Reblitz, 2001, p.195, pp. 198-200 Automatic Pianos, Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume, 2004, p.52, 246 Provenance: Private UK collection of since 1970s. Footnote: The Mills Novelty Company are probably best remembered as makers of 'one-armed bandits', stereo card viewers, fortune telling machines and other amusement and entertainment devices which involved extracting people's money. In 1909, they introduced the Violano-Virtuoso, which was mainly to add an exciting new attention-grabbing model to their line but even they could not envisage what a success it would be. It was singled out by the US government as one of the eight greatest inventions of the decade when it was introduced at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition and was hailed as one of the most important and incredible musical devices ever made. Their reason for choosing such a design centered around creating an instrument which would be both functional and a technical show-off. A special type of piano frame was designed by Henry K. Sandell and filed as a patent on June 4 1912. It consisted of the longer bass strings arranged in the centre, whilst flanked in alternating order by the upwards scale, in a symmetrical fashion. This exerted less stress to the frame and it even stayed in tune for longer. Mills made several models of the Violano-Virtuoso machines, with ones even containing both cello and violins. However these were short-lived in the marketplace, while the Violano-Virtuoso was sold to the extent of around 4,000 instruments. It has been noted that in some establishments where one of these had installed for public use in places such as cafés, the instruments were taking more money via the coin slot than from purchases from the shop counter. Specialists are not sure whether an instrument clamped inside a box under a hot light bulb and rarely professionally tuned would be good for a violin, let alone make it increase in value. But then these were not usual violins. The tuning peg holes in Mills-made violins, such as this example, were never drilled and the string exit goes over the scroll and down the side of the neck, terminating with self-tuning shot-filled chambers. These violins might not be worth $300 to an orchestra member, since they cannot be played by hand, but they are certainly worth $1000 to a Mills collector today. Perhaps they were correct after all. Mills continued making these machines until the mid 1920s, and even cutting rolls for them until the mid 1930s. Following several take-over bids in the 1950s, financial problems with the then newly-named Bell-O-Matic Company, it led to the night guard locking up the front door of the factory on 4100 Fullerton Avenue in Chicago for the last time, in around 1983.

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价格信息

拍品估价：25,000 - 35,000 英镑 起拍价格：20,000 英镑  买家佣金： 25.00% + VAT 服务费：平台服务费为成交总金额（含佣金）的3%

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