Peter Coggins seems to be referring to the "Tanzbaer" (Dancing-Bear)
player accordion.  These looked like a concertina and used a very small
paper roll.  They came in 20 and 26-note versions (I may be off a
little).

The player has to keep the roll mechanism going by pumping a little lever
that's ratcheted to a flywheel, and meanwhile squeezing the bellows in
and out with the reversals timed to pauses in the music, just like a
"real" accordion.

Talk about chewing gum and walking at the same time!  I tried to play
The Blue Danube on a Tanzbaer at the Union IL swap meet (that tune is
everywhere!) and just embarrassed myself no end.  It takes *practice* to
dance with the bears!  Except in Chicago :-)

I recently saw an ad whereby someone is making new reproductions of the
Tanzbaer at a reasonable (in mech. music terms) price.  A good used one
is around $1000.  It's a great little instrument.

Regarding custom music boxes and the "Prince of Wales" box --

Well, Bill Gates could arrange his sweetheart's favorite song for a
music box.  Might also be good for the Niemann-Marcus catalog ("Needless
Markup"), which caters to the crowd that can give out large cartel boxes
as party favors...

The MBSI conventions have had music boxes as table party favors for
years, although not quite on the scale of that Prince of Wales box.
Just your basic 17-noters, but they play nicely!

Mike Knudsen