Messages

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Antique Questions Forum / Antique bowl - Cloisonne - Any ideas about this piece?

« on: July 21, 2010, 06:56:39 am »

Bought by my grandfather in the 1930s, possibly as an antique when he bought it, we’re not sure.
It was inherited by my father, and has been sitting in a display case for the last 20 odd years.
Since such a brilliant job was done recently on the orchestrion, as promised in my first post, here are a few more of our prized possessions.

Just after general information and opinoins on this piece. Its in near perfect condition and is a beautiful piece.

More to follow.


As always, thanks greatly for the help.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: July 16, 2010, 06:39:02 pm »

Sapphire, I am in your debt.

That research is excellent. I've been able to get a number of results looking up Friedrich Theodor and I think you've got it spot on. I think you've pretty much opened the flood gates, even the german Wiki has a hit for him

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrion&ei=8PpATK7sB4GGvAONm6jYDA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCYQ7gEwBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DFriedrich%2BTheodor%2Borchestrion%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26as_qdr%3Dall%26prmd%3Dbo

From what I can tell, this dates the orchestrion at 1851-1853 or thereabouts, which is slightly older than our original guesses.

Along with that, I've contacted the authors of both of the youtube videos that are of similar Eldorado Orchestrions to see if they themselves have managed to gather any info on the piece.

I think its all starting to come together, thanks greatly for the help, I'll keep everyone updated

 

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: July 16, 2010, 05:45:07 am »

How about that,

thats some great work there sapphire, so it seems incredibly likely that this is an eldorado orchestrion.

Its freaky how similar they look to my grandfather's, thats a wonderful help, thank you

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: July 15, 2010, 08:49:11 am »

agreed KC,

do you mean better detail images of what is shown on the barrels in the videos? I have the hi res versions on my laptop, I could easily take still frames of the video footage if you think that may help.

Its scary how things change, most of the delay was due to finding media for our Sony camera that was 8 months old, we gave up, bought a samsung camera for a fifth of the cost of the sony, which seems to take better videos 

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: July 14, 2010, 11:10:40 pm »

Hi all, thanks for the comments.

I've gone a little slack on the research lately due to doing night shifts at the hospital.

Now that I'm off them, I'm back to procrastinating 

KC; I still haven't had the chance to contact the museum. I was waiting until we managed to get some more info on the actual barrels and see if that provided us with any more information.

That said... does the writing on the barrels mean anything at all to anyone?

I have more footage of the beauty, but they seem to take a couple of hours a piece to get onto youtube, and I think most of the detail is apparent in those 5.

As always, all comments and information greatly appreciated, and thanks for all the help thus far

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: July 13, 2010, 03:15:53 am »

Well all, its been a while but here are the videos.

Enjoy!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dDmpRz8bdA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQTIySr-Lkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKv611O1bGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5oZosoYBHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-KyhLL7cXY

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: May 10, 2010, 01:40:42 am »

That sounds more like it Sapphire.

I have to correct what I said previously; this machine isn't powered through a pendulum. The mechanism is a heavy weight which is raised by using the winding handle, and is then slowly lowered and regulated through the governor that you can see beside the loaded barrel in one of the photos in the thread.


We've been giving thought to taking some video and some better photos and sending them in to one of those collector or antique shows on tv and seeing if they can give us any help as well.

I know someone who speaks German, Sapphire, I'll send them the link and see if they can give us a hand, thanks all

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: unique sofa--what is it and whats it worth

« on: May 06, 2010, 01:31:04 am »

Is it just my quirky sense of haha or do they strike anyone else as a little 'off'?

My girlfriend can't stand bed knobs. Can't manage to walk past the end of our bed with out practically fracturing her patella.

I think those feet would be the end of her, or me if I owned it.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: May 06, 2010, 01:27:43 am »

That's some fine detective work there guys 

It had been suggested that Kiel was the town of manufacture or the place where the piece was constructed for use. I'd found something similar Sapphire and Regularjoe2 about Theodor Behrend, both the ship and the person. It would seem to me that "Theodor" itself wouldn't be an overly rare name, but Behrend seems to be, so perhaps the person and the ship were connected somehow? A child named after it perhaps or a relative connected to the naming of the ship?

That aside, it would be fascinating to think that this was a piece connected to a large ship that later met its demise, proving it would be something entirely different I assume, though the dates are about right. Its probably fantasy, but it would be great.

The only problem that I have with this theory is connected with KC's question. This is a hand cranked orchestrion, purely mechanical, which means that it is dependent on a large pendulum, probably about 100kg. Typically pendulums and ships are a no go, though I guess stranger things have happened and this may only apply to ships travelling in open water.

Cogar, good suggestion. We're working on that, if only for the pleasure of people on forums such as this. The difficulty is that I myself live about 500km from where this piece is stored. It's apparent that we may benefit from taking a more invasive look at it and trying to figure out the songs on the barrells somehow. Its a fascinating machine to watch, even if the tunes themselves are over a century old.

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Antique Questions Forum / Re: Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: May 04, 2010, 05:15:37 pm »

Thanks for the help so far everyone.

It looks like we may have to take a bit of a better look inside in order to figure out the manufacturer. I've contacted someone in the US who's a collector and the suggested was made that the label on the machine could be for where the piece was made for, not who made it.

We're also going to try and find out the songs on the barrrels, since thats apparently something of particular interest to collectors as well.

My next plan is to try and contact someone at one of those Australian museums, thanks for that KC.

Any other suggestions keep them coming, I'll be sure to post on here how I go

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Antique Questions Forum / Barrel Orchestrion - Theodor Behrend Kiel. - Any help??

« on: May 03, 2010, 12:28:51 am »

Hi all,

This was the property of my recently deceased Grandfather. He was a large collector of antiques, from clocks to cars to even tanks. After many years of this hobby, he reached the point where he started his own "Conservatorium of Antiques", which he decided to call an "Antiquotorium".

With a collection the size of his, it was impossible that we knew the story behind all of his pieces; in fact I'm not 100% that he knew the story behind all of them. With his passing, my family is on a mission to try and gain as much information as possible about his items and their heritage, so we'll see how we go and there might be alot more pieces ending up for question on here.

This is my first post here, but I've read through it and I believe that this is the right forum area? Apologies if I got it wrong.

All that we know about this is what is written on it. Its solid oak, stands at about 10'6" and of course is rather heavy. We've been told that it is most likely from somewhere between 1840 and 1900 simply by the design of the barrel. That's all that we know.

Interestingly, this piece is in Bundaberg, Australia. That's a small town 4 hours north of Brisbane with a population of less than 70,000. How it got there, we do not know but we know that this item must be very rare in our country.

Absolutely any information or assistance on the piece would be great; ideas on the age, mfr, just absolutely anything.

Thanks all 

Oh, I almost forgot to add that it works perfectly and when locked can be coin operated. There is a spare music barrel stored in the bottom half of the cabinet.









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Antique Questions Forum / English Bangor Water Jug

« on: August 26, 2008, 02:41:44 pm »

Hi, we have this floating around and I was just wonderng if anyone could tell me anything about it?

Bottom reads "made in England" and I assume that the next word is "Bangor".

I can't find anything by trying to google it, none of that info seems at all specific.

An help appreciated

Cheers.

5 photos a photobucket, i'll check out somewhere else to host them also

<a href="http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq298/bobbly_bob/?action=view&current=IMGP2905.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq298/bobbly_bob/IMGP2905.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">[/url]