Regarding Bing Gibbs' request about Angelus roll formats, I was amused
to speculate why these odd rolls were ascribed British design!

The bottom-to-top format was actually an early product of the American
Wilcox & White Company for their 'different to Aeolian in every aspect'
Angelus machine.  These had rolls installed 'upside down' on the bottom
spool, with the paper coming off the back, and the take-up spool on top
of the tracker bar.  The rolls should be labelled where they were made.
Angelus rolls were made in the UK some time post 1910, but were USA
only before that.  Whether the inverted 65-note rolls were ever made in
the UK I really don't know.

It's quite wonderful just how different the early Angelus managed to
be.  Not only do these machines have the rolls upside down, but the
spoolbox has been narrowed so it's impossible to fit ordinary 65-note
rolls in them (the pins are too long).  The inverted stack, where air
was admitted to inflate pneumatics in a suction chamber, is a
particularly glorious example of perverse difference.

Normality crept in later -- the stack was redesigned to suck the
pneumatics shut like other players, even though the leather pouch
pneumatics were retained.  Later instruments can play either Angelus
or ordinary 65-note rolls, the take-up spool being movable to the top
or bottom accordingly.

The actual Angelus roll format is the same as any other 65 note --
all that has to be done to use an ordinary 65-note roll on an Angelus,
or vice-versa, is to de-spool the paper and reroll it the right way for
the instrument in question, given the spool will fit the spoolbox.

Julian Dyer