Reuge Sainte-Croix

Reuge Music’ is a Swiss company renowned for making musical boxes and other ‘mechanical music’ items such as musical pocket watches and singing birds.

The company was founded by Charles Reuge in 1865 in Sainte-Croix in Switzerland to make musical pocket-watches featuring the ‘Reuge musical movement’ which combined a musical cylinder and miniature comb into a watch movement. His son, Albert Reuge turned the family workshop into a small factory in 1886 to produce a wider range of musical items incorporating the unique musical movement including unlikely items such as powder compacts and cigarette lighters.

From 1930, under leadership of Guido Reuge, the company built a new factory in Sainte-Croix and expanded, partly by acquiring other companies like singing bird makers Bontems (Paris), Eschle (Germany), and disc music maker Thorens (Switzerland).

Reuge is still trading and produces high-quality precision-engineered mechanical music items.