One to Fifteen Nickels

The John Moran preview in Monrovia last Saturday was very much my kind of sale. Carved wood, gilt bronze, marble tops, an eight-foot Italian Art Deco wardrobe with its own lamps wired into the top. I could have written about a dozen pieces, but there was one I kept coming back to.

Mills Violano-Virtuoso, circa 1915. Seen at John Moran Auctioneers, Monrovia, October 2026.

A tall mahogany cabinet stood among the furniture with its glass doors closed. Corinthian columns on either side, four beveled glass panes across the top, and beside the coin slide, a small black and brass plaque with an engraved pointing hand: You can play 1 to 15 nickels. Place 5¢ in slide and push in.

It was the first one I’d seen in person. A Violano-Virtuoso, made around 1915 by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Mills also made slot machines. Behind the glass were a real violin and a piano, and a paper roll played them both once a nickel dropped. I could see both instruments through the panes, along with the workings that played them. Mills made about four thousand of them before 1930. They were popular in restaurants, candy shops, and hotel lobbies.

Nobody played it while I was there. Reading the plaque, I started picturing a couple in one of those hotel lobbies, dressed for dinner, her nickel already in the slide, both of them leaning close to the glass to watch the violin and piano play. Velvet, warm wood, low light.

I still want to know what it sounded like, and what they heard.

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This Field Note first appeared in Worth the Hunt, a free email every Thursday with a handful of estate sales, auctions, and antique shows worth knowing about. Get next Thursday’s Hunt.