I bought two fisher price disk music box players off of ebay last week. One was listed as broken and the other was listed as working. The difference between them is that somebody wiped one of them with a damp cloth so it looks less scruffy, but they (fail to) sound exactly the same.

This is slightly disappointing, as I've had good luck with ebay vendors previously and also the "working" one cost £30.

Both of them have extremely slow spinning mechanisms. Fortunately iFixIt actually has a web page on how to restore these! https://fixitworkshop.co.uk/2017/06/21/slow-fisher-price-mechanical-music-box-record-player/

The "swiss mechanism" is the part that makes sound. It's in the player head and is a bunch of spinning asymmetric disks. The player disks have grooves with little obstacles in them. As the player's head's disks encounter the obstacles, their protrusions get caught by the obstacle, forcing their tiny disks to turn. As it turns, the opposite side of it strikes a tine, playing a note. Many of them are not turning, which I think WD40 may fix. Some of them are hitting sour notes when they do turn, which suggests the whole thing is slightly out of position, which I don't know how to fix, but presumably one gains access via opening the case and removing a screw to the play arm.

#FischerPrice #VintageToy #MusicBox