A rare mandoline musical box

Details
A rare mandoline musical box
playing four airs (mandoline teeth in groups of up to eight, extending approximately two-thirds of comb length), with unusual winding lever, hand-written tune sheet signed A. Golay-Leresche - Geneva and grained case with inlaid and strung rosewood-veneered lid --21in. (53.3cm.) wide, the cylinder 13 1/8in. (33.4cm.)

See Illustration

Lot Essay

Ord-Hume (Musical Box, p.305) refers to this box as bearing the stamp and tune sheet of Golay-Leresche. In fact, no stamp is visible (without total dismantling), but on the front edge of the comb base, visible when removed from the case, is inscribed L. Kimmerling (the initial is indistinct). Kimmerling is referred to by Ord-Hume, quoting Grosclaude, a joint inventor, with Ducommun, of the flutina musical box.
The winding-lever is not, as Ord-Hume suggests, hinged in the middle: it is cast in one piece in a cranked form, so that the hand-grip end is central within the end compartment, rather than on the right as normal. In practice, this design offers no obvious advantage over the conventional form of lever. The box is illustrated in Graham Webb, The Cylinder Musical Box Handbook, 1968, plates 11 and 12. The comb has a total of approximately 187 teeth.

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