Subtitle: Other Machines Which 'Play' Perforated Rolls

In 1974, in order to stimulate business, I began to advertise using the
phrase, "If it works with a perforated roll, we can fix it."  I had
only mechanical music in mind when I did that, but it brought some
pleasant and rewarding surprises.

The first call, as I remember, came from St. Mark's Episcopal Church
here in San Antonio.  They needed someone to repair their Deagan
Tubular Bells.  These were not electronic, but the large cast tubular
bells that I have featured on my home page.  It was my first
introduction to the Deagan roll player and began my association with
J. C. Deagan.

I went to Chicago to meet as many people as I could who were still
working in the factory.  That is where I saw the "recording machine."
The rolls were done in real time, sort of.  June Albright Howard
demonstrated the machine to me.  The punches were all driven by
electric clutches and vibrated rapidly.  She "played" slowly and used
damper pedals to punch sustaining perfs for the harmonically tuned
sets.  Deagan used two holes for sustain, both on the outer edges of
the rolls so as not to weaken the paper.  It was during this visit that
I learned to tune xylophone bars.  Deagan roll chucks are almost
identical to those used by Wurlitzer long roll frames.  Every roll you
ordered from Deagan had a chuck on it so you would not have to change
them!

Later on, we received a call from a local bank.  They needed service on
their automatic typewriting machine.

As a child, in 1947 at a local restaurant, I had seen a fortune telling
machine that used a manual typewriter to print out your "fortune."
When I saw the Autotypist in the bank, I  knew that something like that
had been used in the fortune teller.

On page 660 in Bowers, you will find Otto Schulz' comments concerning
his use of the Western Electric Selectra Mechanism in the Autotypist.
I can add little to his story.  I did visit him several times in the
factory on Pulaski Road, and on one visit remembered to ask him about
the fortune teller I had seen as a child.  "Those machines were the
idea of a man named Lodde, and were called the Lodde Fortune Teller.
All those welded stands that you see in the assembly section of the
factory are the frames left over from the days when we built  those
fortune tellers."

The Autotypist originally was all pneumatic.  Later they modified the
"Selectra" mechanism and used steppers and relays for part of the
work.  When word processors came in the Autotypist was dead.  I bought
all of the remaining ones left from our customers, and through the years
have used the "stacks" for building self-playing accordions.  The pneu-
matic section of the Autotypist is ruggedly built.  They operated on
8" of MERCURY vacuum, so they had to be as air tight as they could be.

When Otto Schulz closed the factory, he sent all of the dealers a list
of the suppliers that they had used through the years, vendors for
castings, leather, glue, hardware, and the paper that the rolls were
perforated on.  I checked my list a few weeks back and called the two
numbers that I used to order the  paper from.  They had both been
disconnected.  I still have several rolls, and use the paper for the
Celestina roll cutting project that I showed on my web site.

If you find an Autotypist and like to tinker, get it.  The roll frame on
the selecting models is an almost exact duplicate of the Western
Electric roll frame, and we have used them in the past for "built up"
coin op pianos.  The pump castings are the same as those used on
National Pianos, the ones with the eight roll changer in them.  They
almost never wear out.

A final note.  We also got two Pace's Races games in to repair.  They
were totally pneumatic and represent to me one of the most complicated
uses of the pneumatic system.  Even the "odds" wheel in the back uses
pneumatics to set and read the odds.  If you find one, try to get a
manual before you start.  They are a pain if you do not.  To watch the
mechanism sense how many nickels have been inserted and to "pay out" to
the winner, all with pneumatics is a wonder.

In 1984 I saw a Lode Fortune Teller at Santa Cruz Seaside Boardwalk in
the game room.  Charley Canfield, the owner, said it had been there for
years.  It still made money.

Ed Gaida

P.S.  I have a manual for the Pace's Races just in case you run into
one.