The Talking Machine Patent Archive

Patents you could hear

Self-playing instrument

Patent drawing of an accordion-like automatic musical instrument showing a folding bellows chamber with a reed-board, a series of gears and ratchet wheels on a shaft, and below it a separate diagram of a long perforated valve-sheet strip marked with note letters and numbered apertures.IMPROVEMENT IN AUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTSHenry B. Horton · October 30, 1877Cross-sectional patent drawing of a music box showing an upright comb of tuned teeth, a pivoted picker-disk and lever mechanism, and a perforated metal sheet traveling along a bed plate driven by a pinion gear, with two additional perspective views of the sheet's projection pattern below.MECHANICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.George B. Hakins · April 14, 1885Patent drawing of an ornamental cross-topped chime cabinet with internal clockwork, bells, and a rotating perforated paper mechanism that controls electro-magnetic hammers striking a series of bells.MECHANICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.Willard H. Gilman · May 21, 1889Patent drawing of a round rotating note-sheet mechanism mounted on a long banjo-like body, showing radial star-wheels, bridges, fret bars, and a hand crank used to automatically pluck and finger strings.SELF-PLAYING STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENTFriedrich Schneider · February 26, 1901Cutaway mechanical drawing of a player-piano pneumatic mechanism showing the vacuum chamber, key-pneumatics, tracker board with a perforated paper music roll passing over it, feeder bellows, and pedal linkage, alongside detail views of the tracker board slots and a music-sheet with rows of numbered perforations.AUTOMATIC PIANO-PLAYERErnest M. Skinner · May 7, 1901