If you are a connoisseur and collector of fine things, especially ones with an old-world charm, then a superb music box created by a design studio in California might interest you.
Renaissance Design's hand-made Seraphim model is a limited edition of 10 pieces – and only two remain unsold.
The Dh140,000 beauty incorporates the only 15 1/2 inch, double comb, disc musical movement made today in the manner of Regina music boxes from the late 1800s.
The movement plays a selection of over 1,000 traditional, classical and contemporary tunes on a 156-note musical comb.
The Seraphim stands 84 inches high and the cabinet is built with burl walnut, hand beveled copper foil leaded glass, turnings and carvings of solid black walnut and storage for 400 discs.
"A seraphim is a chorus of angels singing and the sound of this music box is quite ethereal," Ron Palladino, an American of Italian descent who owns the design studio, told Emirates Business.
"The design concept is my own creation and the movement is placed vertically and positioned so that the copper disc rotates behind an intricate window of hand-beveled peach tint glass set into copper foil leading. When it reflects light from the room it creates a sort of kaleidoscopic effect that is mesmerising.
"There are two soundboards, one just behind the disc and another in the back of the case. They are both made of Sitka Spruce, a very resonant wood that is used in fine acoustic instruments.
"The musical movement is made in the US and has 156 notes, producing a wider harmonic range than a piano. We can also create custom discs with your own favourite tunes."
The hand-crafted movement is the only automatic musical mechanism of its quality that has been made since 1905. Each of the 156 tempered steel teeth in the musical comb is tuned by hand. The large spring driven motor is machined by hand and built to last.
The technology of the musical movement was invented in 1885 in Germany and applied to boxes from that period until 1905. The leading manufacturer of these music boxes was the Polyphon Company in Leipzig.
Eventually Polyphon set up a manufacturing facility in Rahway, New Jersey, and began producing disc music boxes for the American market under the name Regina. These boxes were redesigned to give a fuller and more powerful sound than their German counterparts in order to break into the American market.
Regina became the most powerful music box company in the world. However its success was short lived as the introduction of the phonograph completely killed the music box market and production ceased.
The principle of the movement is based on creating a hardened, tempered, carbon steel comb. Each tooth is carefully filed and tuned to vibrate at the frequency required to produce the note it is assigned to play. The bass notes are tuned by soldering lead weights beneath them to give them the mass needed for the low frequency vibrations. A musical arrangement is then written to translate the tune into a mechanical arrangement of projections under the disc, which turn star wheels that pluck each tooth when that note is required to play. When plucked, the tooth vibrates and is then stopped by a damper to steady it before it is plucked again. All of this happens with great precision in milliseconds.
"When I first conceived the idea of building the Seraphim music box we had a very small shop and a very limited clientele," added Palladino. "There was no evidence that the world would be interested in buying such a machine but we felt it had to be made.
"By the time we were less than halfway into building the first one a customer happened to see it in pieces in the workshop and talked us into selling it to him. Two weeks later another customer placed a deposit on the second one."
Making the boxes is extremely labour-intensive – it takes the company six months to complete each one and only one of the eight they have so far completed was built before it was sold.
"Each cabinet is individually hand-crafted from the most expensive and exotic woods available. All the burl walnut panels are book matched with great attention paid to selecting artistic grain patterns. The frames of the doors are also book matched in burl walnut and the edges of the panels are cross banded in straight grain walnut with solid ebony inlays framing them.
"The music from the Seraphim is haunting and elevating, often bringing tears to the eyes of the listener. It is a sound that no one can be tired of or ever forget."