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Automatic Musical Instrument Company
The Automatic Musical Instrument Company was a very early entry in the American coin piano field, establishing business in about 1900. The company was established by two brothers by the name of Harris, and they built a variety of basic coin operated player pianos. The firm bought their pianos from the Schaff Brothers Piano Company of Huntington, Indiana, and simply modified the instruments by adding the mechanical mechanisms and glass.
By 1910, The Automatic Musical Instrument Company was on the verge of bankruptcy, so Edwin Link of the Schaff Brothers Piano Company took over the Automatic Musical Instrument Company and formed the Link Piano Company. Link continued to build a very successful business in the industry selling many models of coin pianos, nickelodeons and orchestrions well up until the Great Depression era. Since the coin piano business didn’t reach its peak until the late ‘teens, these coin pianos from the early 1900’s were not built in substantial numbers and are exceedingly rare today.
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Advertisement for the Automatic Musical Instrument Company, circa 1905