MMD > Archives > May 2015 > 2015.05.06 > 01Prev  Next


Singing Bird Cage in the UK
By Troy Duncan

Good evening, Brian.  Singing bird cages have been made since the
late 1700s (Jaquet Droz) and are still made today (Reuge, MMM and
a few really poor quality Chinese mechanisms).  All bird cages crafted
post-WW2 have synthetic parts except for Bontems and a mystery Japanese
maker that copied the Bontems design.  Bontems stopped production in
the late 1950s.  Some German bird cages made pre-WW2 also had synthetic
parts.

The bird cage you referenced was most likely made by Bontems of Paris,
France.  The embedded video did not work for me so I could not hear it
play.  However, looking at the number of cams on the movement, this may
play more than one bird song (shifting cam).  I say this because there
are more cams present than needed for a single bird to animate and sing
one song. The photos are not entirely clear but it looks like this may
have four, possibly five cams.

Kind regards,

Troy Duncan


(Message sent Thu 7 May 2015, 00:40:16 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.)

Key Words in Subject:  Bird, Cage, Singing, UK
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