Hi, MMDers.  I might be able to answer Robbie's question.

This music box movement was invented around 1968 by Mr. Komatsu Fumito
("Komatsu" is surname) and Mr. Tashiro Kazuo ("Tashiro" is surname) of
the Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co.  Mr. Komatsu designed the movement, and Mr.
Tashiro designed the system using the paper strip.

Mr. Tashiro was the director of the technology developing division of
the Sankyo Seiki company at that time, and for many years he was also
in charge of the arranging of the music on the Sankyo music box.

Both of them are now retired from Sankyo; Mr. Komatsu is an advisor
of music box technology for Sankyo now, and since 1993 Mr. Tashiro
is making his own disc music boxes and arranging many discs of music.

Mr. Tashiro told me the following story:

The first model of the movement used an electric motor to play the
paper strip.  The model was named the "Rhythmica".  However, this model
was failure in business.  Around 1970, Sankyo developed two other types
of paper strip music box movement.

One was the "Rhythmica Ace", which was also the electric driven model,
but cheaper than the Rhythmica.

The other model was the "Player Piano", which was a manivelle but the
end of the paper strip was glued to the start, to play endlessly.

Sankyo tried to sell the "Rhythmica Ace" model to the European market.
In 1972 or 1973 the Steinbach firm in West Germany suggested that they
could sell a manivelle type of it.  So Sankyo developed the manivelle
model named "TDM202", derived from the "Rhythmica Ace", which was
almost the same style of the present model.

 { A manivelle is a music box powered by a hand-crank instead of
 [ a spring motor, etc.  -- Robbie

However, Sankyo Seiki Mfg. Co. was not the dealer but the manufacturer,
and so could not develop the market for the paper strip manivelle.

Around 1980 paper strip manivelles made in West Germany, with the
TDM202 movement installed, were imported to Tokyo, and the Japanese
market for Sankyo paper strip manivelles was enlarged.

Mr. Tashiro developed a polyester disc type music box using the same
movement as the paper strip manivelle.  This new music box played a
self-punched disc, but it's not as easy to arrange music for the disc
as it is to arrange music for the paper strip.

Some of the MMDers might have heard this disc music box in my workshop
at the 1995 MBSI Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, USA.

My article telling about Mr. Tashiro was published in the MBSI News
Bulletin Issue No. 128 January/February 1996.

Cheers,

Kazuo Murakami
Japan


 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ Now it is confirmed: all of the 20-note manivelles which
 [ play a simple punched card (or disc) are related.
 [ Researchers can use the Key Word In Context (KWIC) index at
 [ http://mmd/foxtail.com/Archives/KWIC/index.html to find
 [ previous MMD articles about the Sankyo manivelle:
 [
 [ ... Paper Strip Music Box
 [ ... Self-Punched Paper Strips
 [
 [ Web sites about Sankyo music box movements include:
 [
 [   http://www.sankyo.com/company.htm
 [   http://www.hongkongproduct.org/all_comp_lists/sankyo_ltd.html
 [   http://www.toys.org.hk/company/sankyo/company.htm
 [
 [ Thank you very much, Kazuo.  We surely appreciate the history!
 [ -- Robbie