The first music machines appeared in the museum’s collection in 1929. Regular acquisitions made with the intent to augment the collection were not made until the 1960s. Today the National Technical Museum features 130 music machines. The collection is divided into chimes, pipe machines, music role machines, reeds and mixed machines.
The music machines date from the mid 18th century till World War II and were mainly manufactured in Czech, German and Swiss workshops. The focal point of the collection consists of the music roll and crank machines. Machines with moving figures are among the collection’s stellar features: street organ with boy figure (Polyphon, 1894), crank music machines with monkey group (Netherlands, 1840), Black child playing on the flute (Halle, 1900), automatic music machines with Amorette dolls (Leipzig, 1890) and music roll box with Chinamen (Switzerland, 1880). From the territory of the present-day Czech Republic the collection includes music roll machines and devices from the workshop of František and Gustav Řebíček from the 19th century. Also significant is the collection of crank music machines from Prague workshops Hrubeš, Kameník, Rubeš) and from manufacturers outside of Prague (Gall – Hostinné, Riemer – Chrastava, Kolb – Pekařov). Orchestrions and pianolas from the first half of the 20th century are part of the collection.