Rollmonica
By Ed Schmidt
After going over all of the back digest, I found several inquiries about the Rollmonica.
I am familiar with three different models that appeared over the years. Starting back in 1928 the Rolmonica was manufactured by the Rollmonica Music Co. of Baltimore MD. There were two models. The standard Rollmonica was a 12 note instrument and used 3 1/4" wide rolls. The Chromatic Rollmonica was a 16 note instrument and used a roll approximately 3.7" wide. Both rolls were of 2 mil dry waxed paper. In the 40s or 50s a plastic version of the Rollmonica appeared.
A number of people have asked me to cut rolls for the instruments, but several problems have held me back. First, my source of dry waxed paper will only supply me 2 mill paper in roll form if I buy 1000 pounds. There is no way in my lifetime that I could use that much 2 mill paper. Does anyone know of a supplier that works in smaller quantities? The second and more major problem is the spools that are used in the instruments. They are made from several different metal stampings. I have not found anyone who would do the tooling and stampings in the quantities that would be needed by collectors, at an affordable price. Copying the old songs and punching them is no problem.
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(Message sent Thu 14 Dec 1995, 15:08:28 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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