My family happened to be visiting Virginia City, Nevada as part of a side trip spent at Lake Tahoe, California. Virginia City is a well preserved ghost town that offers a lot of old, weathered buildings and storefronts. We stopped in to the Mark Twain Bookstore and came upon a Cremona automatic instrument. Call it a player piano if you like. An effigy of Mark Twain is seated next to this automatic instrument which asks for a quarter to be inserted to get the music machine working. Located inside the piano structure can be seen a marimba, a bass drum, cymbals and a perforated music sheet roll . I checked the Internet and found this description which would fit the device:
"The Marquette Piano Company, also of Chicago, marketed its line of very high grade American instruments under the "Cremona Automatic Musical Instrument" name. It was an early entry into the coin piano business and produced from about 1905 thru 1920."
Although it was not working during our visit, I am sure this Cremona automatic instrument made a fine racket in its time!
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