Mills Violano-Virtuoso, “Deluxe Model” with Two Violins
Manufacture Date: May 19, 1926
The United States Patent and Trademark Office had a display of several significant inventions at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Washington in 1909, including an early Violano-Virtuoso. The company used this event to promote the Violano-Virtuoso as "Designated by the U.S. Government as one of the eight greatest inventions of the decade" on all subsequent machines.
Plays violin and a 44 note piano. Machines with two violins are known as the De Luxe model Violano Virtuoso, or nickname the "Double Mills Violano" They made about 4,000 to 5,000 of these. Estimate around thousand of the Violano Virtuoso still and 100 of the Double Mills are still exist today.
The Violano Virtuoso was all-electric and all the moving parts were set in motion by electric motors or electromagnets. A company catalog states that they ran on "any electric lighting current'' and used "no more than one 16-candle power light''. They were designed to operate on 110 volts direct current. In locations that had 110 volts alternating current {or other voltages, the instruments were used with a unique converter unit. The Violano Virtuoso is a heavy object, weighing about 1100 pounds. The first page of the Violano Virtuoso manual started that to lift the instrument from the delivery wagon would need "3 good Man".