Back around 1967 I purchased such a machine from Haverhill's, a
mail-order adult toy store in San Francisco, for aobut $20, as a gift
for my father, who loved music and gadgets as much as I do.

Called the "Melodean" and made in Japan, it was a small psuedo-wooden
box that played cardboard music strips about 4' wide and maybe 20"
long, though you were encouraged to scotch-tape several together as
needed.  It used a lever-plucking arrangmement similar to the Libellion
on standard music-box teeth, and sounds pretty good.

It came with some pre-punched strips, some blank ones, and a paper
punch making smaller holes than a notebook punch.  Scale was 20 notes
-- three octaves of pure diatonic (white key).  No F# or Bb.

Before presenting it at Christmas, I punched up an old Danish dance
tune that my dad had tought me to play on the piano as a boy.  Good
C-F-G three-chord accompnaiment and no "black" notes.

I still have the instrument and most of the cards, but no more blanks.
It uses a small motor powered by three 'D' cells to pull the card thru
with rubber rollers.  It's no short-bedplate Regina but it sounds
better ot me than those little Thorens disk players.

It's fun to watch as it sucks the card in one end, puts a U-turn in it
inside, and expels the card thru another slot above the intake slot.

I'd been considering writing this up for the MBSI journal.
From the postings I've seen, there are several related instruments
around.
Since the MBSI Journal now has a theme on affordable colectables, we
could probably keep it supplied for quite a few issues.

I may post later about a couple of other such items that I've seen and
played but unfortunately did not buy.

--Mike Knudsen,¶
mknudsen@lucent.com