Automatic Musical Company
Self-Playing Xylophone;
Keyboard-Style Automatic Pianos

(Photograph from The Music Trade Review, July 11, 1903 edition)

This illustration of the Automatic Musical Company’s first automatic instrument, the “Self-Playing Xylophone,” is from the July 11, 1903, edition of The Music Trade Review. This now very rare instrument was marketed in 1902-1903, and was not the blazing market success probably anticipated--thus its rarity today. This advertising illustration shows the decorative filigree that appears to be missing in the only known example of the Self-Playing Xylophone pictured below. Also notice that the pump and motor are reversed as compared to the 1903 illustration.

(Photograph courtesy of J. B. Nethercutt)

The only surviving example of Automatic Musical Company’s first automatic instrument, the “Self-Playing Xylophone,” marketed in 1902-1903. Previously in the Lewis Graham “Museum of Music” collection, which traveled the East Coast in a number of semitrailers; currently in the San Sylmar collection in Sylmar, California. It includes a 3-lobe pump and an endless roll mechanism, both of which designs would be used in the firm’s first coin-operated piano, the “Reliable.”

(Photograph courtesy of Art Reblitz)

The Reliable, the first self-playing piano made by the Automatic Musical Company, introduced in 1904.

(Photograph courtesy of Terry Barnes)

In 1906 the Automatic Musical Company introduced the Mandolin Piano. Usually the Company bought its pianos from the Schaff Piano Company, but this specimen appears to be a Haddorff piano, with a rubber stamped serial number. Notice the two-piece bottom board, no doubt to accommodate the tracker tubing and attached upper part of the roll mechanism. The truncated bottom board could be easily opened up once the music roll storage bin was removed. The Mandolin Piano was odd in that it did away with the industry standard mandolin attachment altogether, which was little more than an inexpensive curtain of leather or bellows-cloth strips glued to a wooden rail, and with each strip fitted with a metal tab that struck the piano string when the piano hammer was actuated. This produced a tinkling sound reminiscent of a mandolin. The Mandolin Piano, in striking contrast, had a relatively small but separate cast iron frame and sounding board that was fitted with 31 pairs of strings. The strings were strummed by metal fingers (or tiny thin and flexible metal blades) situated in a wooden framework that was connected to a small belt-driven crankshaft that imparted a sideways oscillating motion to the framework. An oscillating finger could be tilted forward so as to strum a string pair when a long wooden sticker (resting on the back portion of the piano keys) was raised.

(Photograph courtesy of Terry Barnes)

This upper interior view of the Mandolin Piano clearly shows how the mechanical mandolin device was situated. Basically hung from brackets bolted to the piano plate, a long wooden connecting rod attached the sliding framework to a small, belt-driven metal crankshaft located at the left side of the piano action, imparting a back and forth motion of maybe 5/8 of an inch. Two rows of tuning pins are arranged near the top the mandolin device soundboard, which afforded easy turning. However tuning the piano was more challenging, and required the removal of the mandolin device in order to access the mid-section piano tuning pins. A clever linkage to the hammer rail afforded a bit of expression for the mandolin effect, in that when the hammer rail was raised the mandolin fingers were moved back and away from the mandolin strings by a tiny amount, thereby causing the mandolin to play a bit more softly.

(Photograph from The Presto, June 17, 1909 edition)

The Automatic Musical Company's Player Grand Piano, circa 1909. This standard upright looking keyboard style piano was billed as "Incomparably The Best" and "The Biggest Money-Maker in the Trade," but it is not a grand piano in the usually expected sense. Nevertheless, it is an odd addition to Automatic's otherwise obviously coin-operated product line. It is an electrically operated self-playing piano, with what appears to be a single roll mechanism strapped to the pneumatic stack with a sturdy iron strap. The take-up spool is at the top of the roll mechanism, the reverse of what would be expected in a standard player piano of later vintage. An adjustable cone drive on the left side of the roll mechanism controls the speed of the take-up spool. By counting the piano pneumatics it is a 61 note tracker scale, and it is speculated that it used a single tune version of the standard Automatic Musical / Link Piano Company RX roll. The pneumatic stack appears to be like or very similar to the standard stack used by Link in later years, except that Link placed the stack below the keybed, instead as illustrated here in the above advertisement for the Grand Player Piano.

(Photograph courtesy of Junachi Natori,
the Hall of Halls Kiyosato Moeginomura Museum, Japan)

Extremely rare transitional Automatic Musical Comany piano with 30 metal flute pipes and Haddorff piano #27646, made in 1908. When it first left the factory, this piano had a roll bin under the keyboard, a manual control for turning the pipes on and off, an early style Automatic Musical Company pneumatic stack, and an early combination pump (see later picture panes in the Link registry page showing these mechanical details). Within several years, it was remodeled, either by Automatic near the end of its production, or by Link soon after going into business. This work included several important improvements: the case was made taller to house the new style music roll mechanism, and the pneumatic stack, pump, and expression mechanism were replaced with more conventional mechanisms normally found in early Link pianos. This example is a historically important link between Automatic’s latest and Link’s earliest products.

(Photograph courtesy of Junachi Natori,
the Hall of Halls Kiyosato Moeginomura Museum, Japan)

Upper inside of the “missing Link,” showing the 30 symmetrically-arranged metal flutes and roll mechanism with chain and finger music roll drive. The piano originally had only a manual control for turning the pipes on and off; the wooden lock & cancel mechanism directly under the roll drive was added later. The wooden box hanging in front of the bass tuning pins houses the roll drive finger return mechanism, where the fingers fold against the drive chain on their way back to the right end of the piano, once again to pop up between folds of paper.

(Photograph courtesy of Junachi Natori,
the Hall of Halls Kiyosato Moeginomura Museum, Japan)

View below the keyboard, showing the typical early-style Link combination pump, expression mechanism, and pneumatic stack #1353. It is unknown whether these features were designed just before the end of Automatic production, or by Link in its earliest days. The stack number is the lowest one reported to date on a stack of this design.

(Photograph courtesy of Rusty King)

This piano is a little newer than the one shown immediately above. It bears Schaff piano #25499 (1910), with Link #2264 rubber stamped on a paper sticker located below the Schaff serial number. The wooden flute pipes arranged in musical order are the next development after the symmetrical metal pipes in the earlier pianos. There is no evidence of this specimen ever being equipped with an external roll bin under the keyboard, common to early Automatic Musical Company pianos.