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Old-time
coin-operated music machines occupy
the post of popular favor without a
rival in the reopened Cloverland
Museum on the outskirts of Calumet,
Mich., despite the rivalry of many
other exhibits of old-time specialties.
Pioneer automobiles, old paintings,
devices used In the early days in
mining, lumbering, farming and other
American activities all occupy prominent places in the museum, but the
ancestral "jukes" rate first call with
the public.
The museum was reopened July 3
after being closed for five years during the war and the post-war period.
It was originally established 20 years
ago, thru gradual collection of specialty exhibits of many sorts by Alfred Paulson, who operates a modern
grocery, meat market and gasoline
service station on National Highway
41, just across the road from the
museum. The location is at the heart
of the famed Copper Country on the
Keewenaw Peninsula, mecca of tourists who seek the historic mining
centers of "The Calumet," and the
modem lures of the woods and waters
of Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula — a crowd that is swelling to
record proportions this year.
During the weeks the museum has
been open this summer, it has drawn
a crowd of 7,000 people who have
signed the registry, and thousands
more who have not bothered to sign.
Admission is free, and the enterprise
is non-commercial, with an attendant
on hand only to preserve order and to
sell postcards and a few souvenirs.
It is not connected with Paulson's
business enterprise, which is entirely separate, and located on the opposite side of the highway.
The music machines first attracted
Paulson's attention seriously in 1941,
after he had already operated the
museum for a number of years, and
he began to collect them, getting
some from remote farmhouses, some
from big cities. These were all
placed in working condition before
being put on exhibition, so that the
visitors can drop in a nickel. Some
of them, like the Italian Nido
D' Amore, will take just about any
kind of coin from a penny up and
play on it.
The sounds of the machines can be
heard on the highway all day long,
proving that it is the coin-operated
mechanisms that clearly have won
first place with the visitors.
A son, Eldred Paulson, does the
mechanical work to keep these machines in working condition, despite
their age of nearly half to three-quarters of a century. He has also
assisted in the collection and procurement of the machines, altho he is not
actively associated with his father
in the business. The jukes, as most
customers will call them, are his
especial province, however. There
are some machines not yet placed in
condition for public exposition.
Typical is the Nido D' Amore, said
to have been made in Home about
1385. The name plate bears the
legend, "G. Marteletti, Casale Monferrato" for the maker. It is a piano-like device, made of fine ebony
wood, and Is the only truly selective
unit in the group now on public exposition. It offers a selection of 20
pieces.
This machine uses what appears,
under the glass front under where the
keyboard would normally be, to be a
huge birch log. The "log" actually
is a heavy paper roll, slowly turning,
which has small nails studded into it
in such positions that they play the
various pieces as the log revolves
and they make contact—protruding
instead of having holes as in the familiar piano roll. Each nail may
serve for five or so different pieces,
so that there was a skillful job of positioning them to achieve this result
A slight difference of position of the
"log," controlled by the selector,
changes the tune played.
There are two different "logs"
available for this machine. It plays
piano and bell accompaniment, with
an excellent tone quality.
Full piano keyboard with the bell
section added is visible in the upper
portion.
There is a J. P. Seeburg early music box, in a walnut cabinet with
glass front, partly colored and partly
clear—giving the ancestral pattern
of the glass and light combinations
of modern jukes. This is basically
a piano machine, with a xylophone
and drum-like clappers and castanets added—all visible as the machine plays. This model works from
a piano-like roll of music, similar to
the familiar player-piano.
A similar machine with drums,
piano, xylophone and triangle combination, bears the label of the Mar-
quette Music Company, pioneer Detroit operating firm, still in business
here, with even their old telephone
number intact. This one came from
old Riverview Amusement Park in
Detroit, and was for a time in the
possession of a former caretaker before Paulson acquired it.
Another blue-painted piano-like
Mechanical Band has colored glass
doors that open onlo clear glass, giving a full view of the works. This
one, which came from Green Hay,
Wis., operates like a piano, with two
drums and cymbals, as well as a
mandolin and organ effect achieved
at certain points. It uses Clark Orchestra Rolls, made at De Kalb, IL.
At present, this unit is not regularly
in use, as it requires a vacuum to
operate.
There is also an Orchestral Regime,
made about 1885 in Belgium, which
is in an upright secrelary or bookcase-like cabinet of that period, a fine
piece of elaborate cabinet work. Jt
uses large 27-inch steel disks, which
revolve slowly, and may be changed.
This machine has an unusual clear
bell-like tone, and is typical of the
music-box of the period.
The entire group gives visitors a
variety of experience of the coin-controlled musical instruments of the
past, and is a musical education in
miniature.
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