Antique Piano For Sale

DeBence Antique Music World is a museum in Franklin, Pennsylvania whose collection contains more than 100 antique mechanical musical instruments, including music boxes, calliopes, player pianos, and automated brass bands that date from the mid-1800s to the 1940s; as well as a number of other antiques. Many of the collection's mechanical instruments are rare; a number are among only a few manufactured, and a few are among the last in existence. Although the collection’s value cannot be measured, an offer for $13 million was once rejected.

History

Dairy farmers Jake and Elizabeth DeBence began their collection in the late 1940s in Grove City, Pennsylvania. The DeBences became avid auction attendees after purchasing two Tiffany style lamps for $0.50 each. The couple purchased the items at a time that many people were getting rid of them, and their collection continued to grow.

When the DeBences retired to Franklin, Pennsylvania in 1965, they housed the collection in their barn a few miles outside of town and opened it to public viewing as the DeBence Music Museum. After Jake's death in March 1992, Elizabeth put the collection up for sale, and a Japanese interest offered her $13 million. Feeling that her husband would have wanted the collection to remain intact and in the area, she turned them down.

She went to the chamber of Commerce and Local residents formed a non-profit organization (Oil Region Music Preservation Museum)that raised $1 million in a little more than seven months to buy the collection. The effort included selling wooden music notes for placement in storefronts and local yards as a show of support for keeping the collection in Franklin. The museum is housed in the location of the former G.C. Murphy five and dime store on Liberty Street. DeBence Antique Music World opened for tours in 1994. In addition to the musical instruments, the collection includes a large number of antiques the DeBences collected, and it is displayed along with other items that have musical or local significance. The DeBences' collection of more than 40 Tiffany-style hanging lamps provide the museum’s lighting.

Collection

• The Berry-Wood A.O.W. Orchestrion, a nickelodeon that features 10 instruments played by a paper roll, is the last functioning one of its kind in existence. Jake DeBence was offered $350,000 for it.

• The 1850 Mandoline Basse music box from Switzerland , the collection's oldest piece, has enameled metal bumble-bees that strike bells, accompanying the music of a spinning metal cylinder.

• The hand-wound 1901 Gem Organette , which cost $3.25 in the Sears catalog, was an inexpensive alternative to the ornately decorated Ochestrions. The Gem Organette was one of the first music machines that was mass-produced. The music "cobs" cost 17 cents each, and the Organette plays combs that you could get a free machine with two cobs with the purchase of five pounds of flour.

• Behind a pane of glass, a 27-inch metal disc with holes punched in it rotates when a coin is dropped in a push-slot. The Regina Grand Plays a Melodie from over one hundred years ago. As the disc and the over-sized music box play Johann Strauss II’s "Radetsky Waltz" and Many many other songs. Pic. of Regina Music Box

• The Mills Novelty Company's Violano Virtuoso was so popular in 1911 that President of the United States William Howard Taft named it one of the eight inventions of the decade. The machine features a violin played by rollers with piano accompaniment and weights on the headstock that provide vibrato. The Machine is supposed to be held in tune by lead weights, but could still use a good tuning. Pic. of Violano

• Among the collection's Antique record Players, There are two models with attachments that use power from the record to shake, shimmy, gyrate and dance. Volume is controlled by opening and closing the front doors. The figures are worth more than the machines because they were considered toys and would often be destroyed.

• The Artizan calliope from around 1927-1928 is one of only three such machines ever manufactured. The second was destroyed in a fire and will most likely never play again. While there is no record of a third machine even being made. Pic. of Calliope

• Wurlitzer Prototype Band Organ is a prototype that had never been put into production. I is fully chromatic which means that it can play in every key and has almost every note in the scale.

• The Wurlitzer 153 Band Organ is from Idora Park in Youngstown, Ohio. The machine features metal bells the accompany the music.

• The Wurlitzer Pianino is one of the fewer than two dozen that remain. It has flute and violin pipes that accompany to 44 note or half piano.

• The Cremona "J" Tall Case is one of only a few manufactured. It features many instruments and operates from a nickle. Pic. of "J" Case

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "DeBence Antique Music World: A Brief History". DeBence Antique Music World. 2002 . http://www.debencemusicworld.com/history.htm . Retrieved 2007-03-23 .  
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Pinchot, Joe (2000-09-17). "The music never stops". The Sharon Herald . The Sharon Herald Co. . http://www2.sharonherald.com/localnews/recentnews/0009/ln091700d.html . Retrieved 2007-03-23 .  
3. ^ "Obituaries:Elizabeth Jane DeBence". Venango News. 2004-05-17. "" She was married May 26, 1938, to Jacob DeBence, who died March 12, 1992.""  

External links

• DeBence Antique Music World official site

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