A "Nickels Worth" of Information --  There were many different brands of
coin operated player pianos made in America and Europe at one time.  The
different manufacturers made several different models of their pianos.

The first of these manufacturers were centered on the East Coast of
America where they made their own pianos to use their own rolls.  Some
of the early pianos where only 44 notes.  The east coast manufacturers
all made their pianos to use rolls made by them.

The smaller pianos played the piano and usually a mandolin rail which
typically was a device that lowered a cloth strip between the hammers
and the strings with paper fasteners attached so each piano hammer would
strike the paper fastener and then the piano string giving a "rinky tink"
or mandolin sound.

As the industry grew then the manufacturers added other instrumentation
to the piano such as pipe organ pipes.  Chicago was also becoming a
manufacturing  center after these east coast manufacturers had started
the business.  Many of these Chicago-made pianos with one extra instru-
ment played the "S" roll that became known as the "A" roll.  Only very
early rolls are designated the "S" roll.

The "A" roll is the most common of the American rolls.  It is based on
the 65 note player piano tracker bar (the brass or wooden bar that the
paper crosses with holes in it) having 6 holes to the inch for a total
width of 11  1/4 inches.  It has provisions to operate the soft pedal,
sustain pedal, mandolin rail, and extra instrument as well as to operate
the rewind device and to tell the piano at the end of its rewinding
process to shift the piano into the play position.  It also tells the
piano at the end of each tune to turn off the power which is known as
coin trip.

Cremona was made by the Marquette Piano Company of Chicago that is
generally credited with being one of the first manufacturers to use
the "A" roll on its pianos.  J. P. Seeburg was an early employee of the
Marquette piano company before he started his own company.

Marquette made some larger pianos that needed  more controls than the
basic "A" roll could provide.  The two most widely known models are the
Cremona J and the Cremona K,  both of these pianos offered two ranks of
pipes plus a third instrument.  The Cremona J offered the Xylophone or
Bells while the Cremona K offered piccolo pipes.  Both the J and K had
some percussion effects.  The J had drums, cymbal, and a  triangle with
the K having triangle, tambourine and castanets.

These larger Cremona instruments manufactured by Marquette use the "M"
roll to operate these added instruments.  As musical taste changed, or
for what reason we really don't know, the extra instrument in the "A"
roll piano became a xylophone in most instances.

Some Coinola brand of pianos made by the Operators Piano Co. had bells
or what may be known as glockenspiel which are tuned bars of metal.  Some
instruments manufactured by Nelson-Wiggin of Chicago also had these
bells.

The small Coinola pianos that only had one extra instrument sometimes
used the "A" roll while other instruments used the Operators Piano Co.
"O" roll.  Usually the Coinola pianos with the nicer cases and art glass
used the "O" roll while the smaller, more plain-cased pianos used the "A"
roll.

The larger Coinolas with more than one extra instrument always used the
"O" roll.  The "O" roll has provisions for two extra instruments such as
pipes or xylophone and percussion devices such as drums, cymbals, wood
block, tambourine, and triangle.

Meanwhile, across town, the J. P. Seeburg company was producing its own
line of coin operated pianos.  They had already made the model A, B, C,
D, E, and F, all using the "A" roll.  The newest model would of course be
the G.

Incidentally, the model D was not known to collectors when the Encyclopedia
of Automatic Musical Instruments was published.  The D model is the
machine pictured on the Encyclopedia on the upper right hand of page 603
and is labeled as a B model which is incorrect.  Several pieces of
literature have been found since the publication of this excellent book
showing models not in the Encyclopedia.

The newest model by the Seeburg Co., known as the G, was introduced to
the trade around 1912.  The model G needed a roll more complex than the
standard "A" roll to operate the drums and two sets of pipes.  Operators
Piano Co. and the Marquette Piano Co. had both opted for the nine-to-the-
inch tracker bar for their larger models, but  Seeburg decided to
continue with the standard six-to-the-inch 11-1/4-wide roll format.

The "G" roll was then invented with the result that the extra holes
needed for the extra instruments would come with the octave coupling of
the bass notes.  These early "G" rolls were sold as "SS" rolls until they
changed the name to "G" roll.  The "G" roll has 48 playing notes and 17
holes to work the various extra instruments and other functions such as
rewind.

Across the country in New York Wurlitzer was busy making its own models
of coin operated pianos.  Wurlitzer was not alone as Peerless, Capitol
(Rand), Link, and others were busy making their models of coin operated
pianos.  The early Peerless (a pioneer in the industry) used the Peerless
Style  "D"  roll on their basic coin piano which was the Peerless style
D.  Link used the  "RX" roll on their basic pianos while the larger Link
instruments used the LINK "A" roll.  Wurlitzer used their own "APP" roll
on their basic instrument.

As the Wurlitzer line grew they added extra holes to the "APP" roll for
the bigger instruments.  When Wurlitzer instruments go so big they
couldn't use the "APP" roll then they started using two holes together to
control the extra instruments.  The use of two holes at one time is known
as multiplexing.

The biggest Wurlitzers used special rolls known as Pianorchestra rolls.
These rolls where used on the instruments that they at first imported
from Philipps in Germany.  Wurlitzer used more different types of rolls
than any other American manufacturer.

The smallest Wurlitzer roll was for the 44-note piano known as the
Pianino and the roll is also known as the Pianino roll.  There were
several manufacturers of 44-note pianos -- such as the Peerless,
Electrova, North Tonawanda Pianolin -- that all used their own rolls.
The 44-note piano manufacturers were the earliest of the manufacturers.
The Chicago group of manufacturers came after these 44-note piano
manufacturers had pioneered the coin operated piano industry.

The Chicago manufacturers made pianos with keyboards for the first ten or
so years of their existence.  It was later that they made pianos without
keyboards that are known as keyboard-less or cabinet models.

Sound confusing?

Don Teach
Shreveport Music Co
1610 E. Bert Kouns
Shreveport,  LA  71105
dat-smc@juno.com