Play Meter

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THIS REGINA disc-playing music
box was coin-operated and spring-
run . It played up to 12 se!ections
automatically with a single winding.
introduced varied lines of
orchestrions.
Prices were high, but profit
was equally high . In 1914, for
example, a typical coin piano
cost an average of about
$500-$700, while orchestrions
sold for $1,500-$2,500 or better,
with some of the most elaborate
German and American models
selling for $10,000 or better.
"The coming of Prohibition in
1920 killed off the market for
most large orchestrions,"
Bowers says in the Encyclopedia
of Automatic Musical
Instruments . " In fact, it played
havoc with coin -operated
instruments in general. "
Wurlitzer was the leading seller
of coin pianos and orchestrions
from 1900-1920, but during the
'20s, the company's attention
was turned to making of huge
pipe organs for theatre use, a
product line that was virtually
killed off by the arrival of talking
pictures in 1927 .
The speakeasies and " sporting
houses" of the Roaring Twenties
required smaller, less elaborate
instruments than the large
orchestrions and keyboard
pianos and Seeburg became the
leading manufacturer of the
smaller keyboardless
orchestrions, with Western
Electric Piano Co., secretly
owned by Seeburg as a sales
incentive for its salesmen , a close
second.
But the orchestrion 's days
were number and by 1927,
Seeburg 's factory was converted
fqr the production of coin-op
phonographs, the early models
being housed in cabinet piano
cases and using vacuum pumps
and pneumatic mechanisms for
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Wurlitzer concealed the fact that
the machines were made by
Phillipps by not mentioning the
deal publicly and by stamping the
devices " Manufactured by
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company ."
Wurlitzer also marketed
coin -operated pianos, before it
ventured into orchestrions,
Bowers notes . In 1899, its
Tonophone (built by Eugene
DeKieist of North Towanda ,
N.Y.) appeared and was
immediately successful. By 1910,
the American coin piano
in'dustry, which included
Seeburg, Peerless and others as
well, had grown a hundredfold
and Chicago became the center
of the business .
By 1910, these piano
manufacturers also realized the
coin -op pianos in themselves
could not assure a good sales
volume and, hence, they
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