A few of the important pieces of the more than 55 instruments at the Musical Memories Museum are listed here.

Pictured above is a Wurlitzer 146B Band Organ. It typically was seen on Merry-Go-Rounds or at Carnivals. It contains 120 flute pipes, a xylophone, 2 drums, and a cymbal This unit is brightly painted and has a moving conductor in front of the pipes.

Seeburg Model KT - (below) - This coin operated piece contains a piano, a zylophone, and castenettes. You can see the zylophone through the stained glass head of the cabinet. The KT does not have a keyboard, and thus cannot be played as a normal piano.

Seeburg Model E - (below) - This coin operated peice also contains a piano and a zylophone. Like the model KT; you can see the zylophone through the stained glass head of the cabinet. This Seeburg also features a keyboard and 'coach lights'. The keyboard allowed it to be played manually when not being used as a niclelodeon.

Seeburg Model HO - (not shown) This "Home Organ" is a self player which also has two sets of keys. It could double as a piano or organ for musical practice at home, and as a way to provide music for parties and gahterings in well to do homes.

Seeburg Model MO - (below) This unit was not coin operated. It was used in more formal settings - often in mortuaries or funeral homes. It features a piano and a pipe organ to reproduce a more somber sound, and had pipe stops and cabinet shutters to control the sound even further. Notice the candle sticks and "church like" arches in the cabinetry.

Mason-Hamlin Duplicating Grand - This is a full grand piano - on of the most famous names of grands - that also plays itself via roll mechinism which is hidden underneath. This would have been used in a luxurious home or possibly a lobby of a fine hotel. If you close your eyes, you would sware there was a professional at the keys. The volume and grace defies the idea that it is playing itself.

Mills Violin Virtuoso - (below) - this amazing piece has a 44 note piano and a full size playing violin. The violin sings and vibrates with stacatto as if a virtuoso himself were playing it. Mechanical fingers do the fretwork, and it is suspended in a cradle which shakes and vibrates at appropriate times to give the true sensation of a person playing it. This machine was delcared the 8th wonder of the modern world by congress at the time of it's invention.

Wilhelm Bruder "Monkey Organ" - (below) - this was a small portable pipe organ used by an 'organ grinder' in the late 1800's and early 1900's. A monkey was typically used to attract children and collect donated coins. There are very few of these organs left; as they were used very hard in their time. This unit is larger that many, and has tremendous detail in the inlay used to create the flowers and stripes around the cabinet. It would typically have been pulled around on a cart........sometimes the cart was constructed to also act as a cage for the monkey.

Cob Organ - this is one of the very early attemps at creating repeatable music. It played a wooden cylinder with small pins, that when rotated, sent air thru various reed openings.

Thomas Edison Experimantal Victrola - this unique piece is a horizontal cabinet; rather than a veritcle cabinet which was the tradition of the time. It has a primative volume control, and a Thomas Edison insignia.

Wurlitzer Pianino - this extreemly rare coin operated piece has a 44 note piano soundboard along with a violin pipes and flute pipes.

Regina Table Top and Upright Music Boxes - (upright unit below) - The word music box belies that sound that these instruments create. Large discs are punched with hundereds of slots and holes. The metal that gets punched lets a lip on the back of the disc....which in turns plays the comb of the music box. The sound is amplified and enriched via chanels in the cabinet and a sound board until it comes out sounding like it was electrically amplified. These units are completely mechanical.

Link Model A Orchestrian (shown below) - Currently being restored, this is a very rare coin operated unit. Many may think the 8-Track was invented in the late 1960'ss - but the Link was a hundred year predecessor to the 8-Track. It played 8 different songs in succession before repeating. The huge continous paper roll was stuffed into a wooden cavity in the cabinet - just like an 8-Track was stuffed into it's plastic case. This Model A is quite unique in it's list of instruments, too. It includes a piano, mandolin strings, violin pipes, flute pipes, a tom tom, a snare drum, a tamborine, a wood block, and a triangle!

French Barrel Organ - this coin operated unit from the 1800's used a large wooden barrel - the size of a beer keg - with hundreds ....if not thousands of pins and nails it it. As the barrel rotated, the pins actuated hammers which then struck the strings on the sound board. As patrons would not want to listen to the same song over and over again, and it was impossible to change the barrel.......the pins are located in such a way, that shifting the barrel about 3/16 of an inch; lined a different set of pins with the actuators...thus playing a different song. A mechinism on the side of the unit was used to shift the barrel from song to song.