Small Duncanville Tower Holds Amazing Collection Of Mechanical Music Instruments

Next to a Duncanville lumber yard, near I-20 and North Duncanville Road, is a brick building filled with a collection of antique mechanical music machines.

 

A small tower next to DeFord's Lumber in Duncanville contains an intricate clock, bells and chimes, which spent most of last century in a schoolhouse in Germany.

How it got here, and why it's being restored to it's original working condition, is a small part of the story of the passion of one man.

Mr. Wilkins is a lucky guy. Decades ago he started working with Homer DeFord, owner of the Lumber Yard. They'd sell a few audio devices like dictaphones, record players and tape decks.

Over the years, with DeFord's patronage, Wilkins traveled the world and acquired a staggering collection of antique working audio and musical machines.

A few weeks from now, The Olden Year Musical Museum opens and Wilkins looks forward to sharing his collection of treasures.

They're machines. Intricate, mysterious, machines, playing themselves. A lot of them are coin-operated and Some of them are more than a century old.

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