Help -- Archaeology Inside an Organ Musical Box

Please help before I destroy a piece of music box history.  While
restoring an orchestral music box by Greiner and/or Bremond, I found
that the pieces of paper glued inside the reed organ wind chest were not
blank, but scraps of a "gamme" (scale) sheet for some other (?) musical
box.  Shown are scales with number of comb teeth and names of tunes and
composers.

To finish my restoration, I must plane away some of this paper and glue
new paper or pouch leather over the joints to seal the chest, thus
destroying the information.  Now I sympathize with Mexico City, whose
officials can scarcely dig a sewer or a subway without disturbing Aztec
artifacts!  Or the choir boys of St. Thomas, Leipzig, who got to wrap
their lunches in Bach cantatas.

In the Spring 1994 issue of "Mechanical Music" (the MBSI journal),
George Worswick reports on finding the same item in a Nicole Freres
box.  Unlike his finding, mine so far does not reveal a gamme number
or maker's name, so may not prove as useful, but it could help date my
box.  "Trovatore" appears twice, which would date my box at least a
year or two after that opera (off to the library I go).  The tune/
composer list is sliced into two or three pieces scattered around the
wind chest.

My box has no tune sheet, and I don't recognize any of the airs, which
sound like popular Italian songs.

George's and my findings show that after finishing a run of boxes with
a certain comb scale, some makers did not consider the gamme record
worth keeping, and "recycled" the sheets in a picturesque manner.  At
least not all papers were used to start the wood stove on a nippy Swiss
morning!  For dating purposes it would be nice to know how soon the
records would be considered scrap; possibly one minute after the last
such comb had been tuned, or the last such box shipped out?

Could the sheet conceivably belong to the box it was "used" in?!

In my box the paper is fairly heavy and glued written side inward,
so I did not spot the writing until I shellacked the inside of the
reservoir bellows board, and later started planing away some outer
sealing paper.  Applying water or linseed oil makes the paper
transparent and the writing visible, which must then be viewed in
a mirror.

I will try to photograph as much as I can, but I do want to finish
the work and get this organ section playing!  How valuable is this
information?  Some other words I can make out are:

"No. de Gammes" (but no number written in) "Patterson"  "Finale"
"P----- de prairi"

I may submit this to the MBSI Bulletin.  My box itself is interesting,
but that's another posting.  However, its serial is 7656 and the organ
has penciled "g[amme]116" and "15p[ouces]" which matches the 16"
cylinder.

Mike Knudsen