(Photograph courtesy of Q. David Bowers.)

De Kleist/Wurlitzer Tonophone case design number 2.

The barrel or pinned-cylinder operated Tonophone was a coin operated piano manufactured by Eugene de Kleist’s North Tonawanda Barrel-Organ Factory, and then exclusively marketed by Wurlitzer, introducing it in 1898. The above illustration shows the more familiar keyboardless Tonophone, but there were keyboard styles too, with the cumbersome pinned-cylinder inconveniently mounted just below the forward portion of the keyboard. This left no room for someone to place their legs under the keyboard, which probably made playing the piano by hand awkward at best.