have a higher serial number on the piano, even though
they were built at an earlier date.
This early case design has a large beveled window
in front showcasing the violin, with stained glass pan-
els above the windows and doors. There are windows
on each side of the cabinet, just like you will observe
on a bow front model and one early home model. This
cabinet does have a few advancements. For example,
the coin entry, which was originally located on the right
side, has now been placed in the front just like you will
find on the later models. You can find several catalog
photos of this model pictured in the Encyclopedia of
Automatic Musical Instruments, by Q. David Bow-
ers, on pages 508-512, while also being placed on the
cover.
This particular machine has a piano plate marked
"patent allowed Violano-Virtuoso U.S.A." Only a few
of these early plates are known today. The violin bears
serial number 247 and was produced by P.C. Poulsen,
who worked for Mills from 1908 to 1919. The first
mechanism to be used on a violin was the overhead
prototype version with the strings being fretted from
the top. It also had an attachment for pizzicato which is
a term for "plucking the strings." Today, only one Vio-
lano remains with this prototype overhead unit; built
for Herbert Mills and placed in his home. According
to Bert Mills, fewer than 20 of the overhead prototype
mechanisms were ever produced. With the numerous
problems they had, they were quickly updated with
the early violin expression mechanism, between 1909-
1910, which today is known as the "early style." This
early cabinet originally held the prototype version only
to be upgraded later at the factory during the piano
installation. This early style expression was used into
the late teens, and has been observed as high as serial
2001.
This early Violano was purchased by Mr. Oswald
"Ozzie" Wurdeman, in October of 1969. Ozzie was
the son of Edward "Ed" Wurdeman who had acquired
a distributorship from the Mills Novelty Company in
1921, to exclusively market the Violano-Virtuoso in
Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Ed load-
ed up his family that year and moved from Nebraska
to Minneapolis to start The Electric Violin Company.
Ozzie was 21 when they moved to Minnesota. He spent
some time in Chicago at the Mills factory where he lat-
er became a trained serviceman on the Violano. The
machines were very expensive back then, costing Ed
$1,200 for a (single) Baby Grand, $ 1,600 for a Concert
Grand, and $2,000 for a double Violano. Later in the
1920s, they started marketing the Western Electric pi-
ano and phonograph while continuing the Violano. Ed
had taken out loans from the bank to pay for many of
the over 350 machines he owned. When the depression
hit in 1929, Ed lost his business, and the bank went un-
der as well. As a result, most of the machines were left
standing, and Ozzie rounded up as many as he could
before they vanished. He then took the piano plates out
of the Violanos and sold them for scrap to buy grocer-
ies. The back doors with soundboards were also taken
off, placed flat on their backs, and used to build his
shop floor. The remaining wooden case parts were then
broken up and burned in his wood stove in the cold
winter months.
Ozzie could work on band organs, pianos, Violanos
or any other musical machine. In the early 1930s, he
started his own business selling and repairing band or-
gans and calliopes. He found plenty of work at the area
amusement parks and skate parks with their pianos and
organs. He also worked on jukeboxes and pinball ma-
chines to keep up the business. The Wurdeman family
spent 19 summers in Virginia City, Montana, in the 50s
and 60s working for Charlie Bovey, a wealthy entrepre-
neur who played a key part in preserving and displaying
the historic buildings of that old mining town. While
working in Montana, Ozzie stumbled across this rare
Violano in a museum in Billings. The museum was lo-
cated in the Wonderland Park owned by Don and Stella
Foote, who also owned another museum in Cody, Wyo-
ming. The Footes exhibited some rare musical instru-
ments, including a Seeburg Style H Solo Orchestrion at
the Montana display and at the New York World's Fair
in 1964, which is now in the Bowers collection.
When Don passed away in 1968, Stella lost interest
in the museum and decided to sell off the collection
which included approximately 58 instruments. She sent
a list to Ozzie, who had worked on many of them, to
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