Music box manufacturer Regina Co. of Rahway, NJ announced the "Hexaphone" in December 1908, with the first shipment leaving the factory on February 5, 1909. Robust and practical, the Hexaphone went on to became the most successful of cylinder coin-operated phonographs. Unlike earlier machines from Edison and Columbia, which offered only a single selection, the Hexaphone featured a carousel of six separate mandrels which could be selected by the patron, substantially increasing the number of musical choices.

The machine pictured here is the earliest Hexaphone known to survive, with serial number 57. Regina factory records indicate that it was shipped on February 27, 1909, to the A.J. Pommer Music Store in Sacramento, California, 90 miles from where it resides today. (Coincidentally, the very first Hexaphone, serial #1, was also sold to Pommer.) It features a very unusual oak cabinet with a curved glass dome and decorative wooden rods in front of the enclosed horn. Unlike most coin-operated phonographs -- and all Hexaphones by the summer of 1909 -- no signboard was used. The rounded glass dome apparently proved to be too expensive to produce in quantity so Regina quickly redesigned the Model 101 to use inexpensive flat glass panels, and the grill was changed to a lattice pattern. Production of the early rounded dome Hexaphone lasted only a couple of months and fewer than 160 were made, with only three survivors known to exist today. (Approximately 1250 of the redesigned flat-glass Model 101 were made, up to September 1912.)

The complex mechanism is fully exposed, with a mirrored back to increase the visual appeal. It plays two-minute cylinders, which were becoming obsolete by 1909. Regina soon began producing Hexaphones to play up-to-date four-minute records, and ultimately went on to produce approximately 7000 Hexaphones in four different models, designated as 101, 102, 103 and 104. Later cabinets, starting with the Model 102, have a Music Master wooden horn mounted into the front of the cabinet (see photograph below). Hexaphone production continued to 1921, quite late for cylinder phonographs.

A.J. Pommer's Music Store in Sacramento, California, at the turn of the century. Pommer was the first store to purchase Hexaphones, starting with serial #1. The Regina Hexaphone pictured on this page was sold here in 1909. (Photo courtesy Sacramento Public Library.)