Keep your Angry Birds, we'll take something a bit more classy

A rendering of the inner workings of one of the rare pistols cum music boxes cum robots.

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

Birds and weapons? Sounds like a certain smartphone-game-turned-cultural-touchstone, right? Well, don't worry; we know you've heard enough aboutthatparticular phenomenon to last a few lifetimes.

No, this little blog item is about something far less widespread than a populariPhoneapp. In fact, the"gadgets"in question here--if one dare call them that--are truly rare. So rare that they're expected to draw $2.5 million to $5 million dollars at a Hong Kong auction later this month.

And though they were created in the early 19th century, and are anything but digital, the technical chops required to make them still manage to impress.

We're talking about a matching pair of gold, jewel-encrusted"pistols"--manufactured as playthings for courtesans in the Chinese royal court by a Swiss studio known for its ingenious automatons.

Theonlysuch matching pair known to exist. There are four other pistols like this, all singletons, and all tucked away in museums.

One of the bejeweled handguns. Our little whistling and winged friend can be seen perched at the end of the double barrel.

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

The glittering handguns don't fire bullets, rather, they fire birdsong. One winds them up with a little key (like one would a watch of the same era), pulls the trigger, and out of the barrel pops a tiny mechanical bird. Complete with real feathers and moving wings, beak, and tail, the charming little fellow sings his heart out for a full 20 seconds, never repeating himself and all the while flitting and dancing about with avian joy and excitement.

There are no batteries in the pistols or birds; the movements and melodies are generated entirely by several hundred diminutive springs, gears, levers, screws, and other such mechanical tidbits--along with a huge helping, of course, of mechanical wizardry.

Give me birdsong over a bullet any day. You can see here the bird's real feathers (and its sweet little expression).

(Credit:Christie's video; screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

You can watch the glittering gizmos in action (and hear the birds' Mozartian music) ina video produced by Christie's, the auction house that'shandling their sale.

We're sure you'll agree it's all a bit more genteel than Duke Nukem.

{ViaThe Wall Street Journal}

Source