Coin Slot Magazine - #026 - 1977 - March [International Arcade Museum]
turn activated a star wheel assembly. Now, instead of a fixed number
of
tunes
programmed
on
a
cylinder,
a
music box could play
virtually any tune desired, so long as you had the disk for that tune.
The inventor of the disk music box, Paul Lochmann, set up his
factory in Leipzig Germany in 1885 and called his new music box
the "Symphonian".
It sold so well that two noted employees of
Lochmann, Gustav Brachhausen and Paul Riessner, both engineers,
decided to leave Symphonian and start their own company.
And
so in 1889 the Polyphon Music Works was founded, also in Leipzig.
By 1890 Polyphon had surpassed Symphonian in output.
To give
some idea of size of this industry, Symphonian and Polyphon, both
at their peak, employed a total of about 800 people.
Brauchhausen was very enterprising and soon became bored with
Polyphon.
Realizing that a great market lay in the U.S. he left
Polyphon and came to America in 1892. With him he took 3 machin
ists and 2 cabinet makers.
It was this year that Brachhausen estab
lished the Regina Music Box Company operating from leased quar
ters in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The new little company grew rapidly and before long moved to
a
25,000 square foot
building
in
Rahway,
New Jersey.
More
employees were soon needed and were brought over from Germany
and Switzerland.
The skill needed to build these precise instruments
was just not to be found in America.
The Regina Factory was set up in a very organized fashion. There
was a comb cutting department, a comb tuning department, a disk
stamping department, an assembly area and so on.
completed
its work
and
usually sent
Each department
it further down
the
line.
Just as we have labor problems today, the same was true back
then.
In the comb tuning department for example, each man sat
side by side along a bench running the length of one room.
hausen
Brach
soon realized that there was constant chatter among the
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MELVIN GETLAN
GAMING, VENDING, AMUSEMENT, MUSIC
ONE REELERS - UPRIGHT OR COUNTER
UNUSUAL TRADE STIMULATORS
WATLING COIN INTAKE HEAD
CAILLE MUSIC BOXES
100 North Central Ave., Hartsdale, N.Y.
(914) 428-2600
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