Bassmen

Jormungand by kassor

While googling about mechanical inventions like Mark Galt’s walking mechanical humans, I happened upon this lovely 1890 piece of restored gears and springs, with the original bellows: a singing bird mechanism. From Colossal:

It’s believed the machine was built 120 years ago in Paris by Blaise Bontems, a well-known maker of bird automata and was recently refurbished by Michael Start over at The House of Automata.

Singing bird boxes were extremely popular in Europe starting from the 18th century, first as a toy for a privileged few and then later as a more affordable item. Watch this video from The British Clockmaker Ray Bates to see how the bird fit in with the box’s innerworkings:

And below, HD video of a singing bird box made by Jaquet-Droz & Leschot, Switzerland circa 1785:

Concepts by John Liew

(Source: bassman5911)

Hot Lead: 1942

September 1942. “Linotype operators in composing room of the New York Times newspaper.” These machines cast lines of type (Linotype) from molten lead prior to their assembly by compositors into the printing plates that go on the presses. Photo by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information.

(Shorpy Historical Photo Archive)

(Source: bassman5911)