Franz Rzebitschek 38169-3362

 






Movement number 38169, Gamme 3362. Cylinder length 13.6 cm, diameter 2.5 cm. Comb with 94 tongues. In March 2024 I had already published a video on YouTube about the music box documented here under the link https://youtu.be/GCD565npAhk. All restoration and repair work has now been completed. Approximately 600 pins on the cylinder were re-pinned, bent tongues were straightened, missing springs and parts were added. The suspension of the winding spring on the barrel was broken and was newly manufactured, all parts were cleaned and adjusted, and the casket was given a restoration work. The musical mechanism and the box had been earlyer worked on by someone else's hands. I'm not a fan of the annoying cylinder polish as it is purely cosmetic. I was able to examine a lot of musical mechanisms after such an ordeal and found that, depending on the skill of the polisher, more or fewer pins were bent or even broken. The pins themselves are also unnecessarily abraded by the polish, albeit to a small extent. The cylinder polish never produces a better sound but only serves the eye of the beholder, which is more satisfied with appearance than reality. Unfortunately, the music program, which is usually stuck on a piece of paper on the outside bottom of the box, has not been preserved. Waltzes and polkas are recognizable and the compositional authorship of the Strauss family is obvious. Restored January - July by Hans-Jürgen Eisel, Erfurt, 2024.


Fotos: ©Archiv Otmar Seemann