Paillard Music Box, ca. 1880
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GUEST:
Growing up, we called this the musical baby coffin, because it was always in the bottom of the stairs of the house. It belonged to my grandpa. And when we had to go down and get things out of the dark basement, it always scared us. So I've grown up with it being in the house. When I turned about 21, my mom moved and wanted to get rid of three things. I have two other sisters. So we drew straws. I got the short straw. Nobody wanted the musical baby coffin. So I've had it since I was about 21 and have lugged it all around with me everywhere I've lived. So that's...
APPRAISER:
All right.
GUEST:
That's my story.
APPRAISER:
We've got a handle sticking out, which might give it away that we do indeed have a music box. Let's go ahead and open it up for just a second and take a look at the inside. You played it a lot, or...
GUEST:
Not a lot, but every now and then, yeah.
APPRAISER:
You enjoy listening to it?
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
They make a beautiful sound.
GUEST:
They do.
APPRAISER:
Music boxes have been around for a long time. There were a lot of makers, and the beginning of this was in Switzerland. We see the label in the back here that says, "Paillard, New York." Okay, so this actually was made in America, we see right here. Now, there were a lot of music boxes made in America. And the biggest maker of them was probably Regina, and we see Reginas all the time. There were a lot of folks knocking it off. And most of them are music boxes. They're worth $400, maybe $1,500. There's not a lot of bang for the buck.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
We looked at this, and I was like, "This is something else." We open the drawer here, and we see another cylinder. And we see places for two more. So we know that this is interchangeable cylinders, which makes it more interesting. Each of these cylinders has a number of songs on it. Usually there's a tune sheet.
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISER:
And there would have been a tune sheet for each cylinder. So you would have more than likely had four tune sheets when it came down to it. The interesting thing that you wouldn't necessarily know, the songs oftentimes can drive a lot of the value. Each of these cylinders has typically six songs. Now, do you know what songs are on these, by chance?
GUEST:
I have no idea.
APPRAISER:
If you had certain songs, it could really dramatically change things. So let's talk about what we have here, and what this is worth. So we have a solid mahogany case with a nice carved front. This has just been painted down in the bottom. Looks like actually this foot may be pine. It's a softer wood foot down on the bottom here. But the primary case is made of mahogany. There are some condition issues. One of the pieces back over here, we have some points. We have some stress here, probably down in the basement. Getting a little bit too much humidity, beginning to pull apart.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
You can see the drawer is not quite working. Let's go ahead and push it back in there. But nonetheless, being what it is, at auction today we would estimate it between $4,000 and $6,000.
GUEST:
Oh, wow, that's awesome. That's awesome.
APPRAISER:
In doing my research for this, putting it together, we were looking at one of the cylinders that had "The Star Spangled Banner" on it. That ultimately resulted in the auction sales price going over $20,000 for a relatively basic case. (music box playing)
Appraisal Details
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