A fiddle improves by age and use; a piano does not, neither does a bell. There is, perhaps a slight improvement for the first few years, but afterwards the quality deteriorates. Metal, we know, is altered, by repeated and long continued hammering. Thump a piece of iron, and you change the quality of its magnetism; the shock of the waves modifies the magnetism of an iron ship; and some of the music is knocked out of a bell by long continued use of the clapper. A peculiar effect is noticed in the bell of Cripplegate Church when it strikes twelve. The first two or three strokes are distinct and clear, then a discord begins, which accumulates with every stroke, until with the eleventh and twelfth a complete double sound is produced.–Chambers’ Journal.
If you follow one of the links above — bell — you’ll find out that whatever bells were there in 1867 were destroyed in 1940. They were replaced in 1954.
And another random walk… Chambers’ Journal was published from 1832 to sometime in the 20th century (I can’t find an end date!). The Dec 19, 1908 edition published the first poem of Raymond Chandler “The Unknown Love.” Yeah, the writer of hardboiled mysteries who asserted in The Big Sleep that “Dead men are heavier than broken hearts” wrote poetry. Since I don’t care to read poetry, you have to decide for yourself if it is incongruous.