Following on from yesterday's thoughts on a 65-note Steck Pianola
and its likely age, I was pondering just when 65-note instruments were
superseded by 88-note instruments.

American Aeolian piano roll catalogs from mid-1910 are completely
65-note (did they have a separate 88-note supplement?).  The 1914 UK
Aeolian catalogue has a smallish number of 88-note rolls -- perhaps
(and I've not really counted) 20% of all titles were available in
88-note by then.

My feeling is that new 65-note rolls production had stopped by then,
and all new titles were 88-note -- quite often exclusively, but with
popular titles in both formats.  Aeolian in the UK carried on cutting
65-note rolls (using 88-note masters) right until 1939, and the rolls
themselves are not uncommon even of that late date, so the market was
there.

If my feeling about the 1914 catalogue is right, it would certainly
suggest that 65-note player production must have ceased around the same
time as the launch of the exclusive 88-note title.  Perhaps you could
obtain dual-scale instruments for a while longer.  Dan Wilson suggests
that you could obtain one in the mid 1920s, although I have to say I've
never encountered one that late.

When I was researching Gotha Steck pianola and piano numbers there was
a clean break between 65-note, 65/88-note and 88-note instruments, with
a lot of clearly older instruments refitted with 88-note (or even
Duo-Art).  No newer 65-note ones, though.  Sadly there is no reliable
Steck serial number chronology to date the change.

It seems to me that most literature simply repeats the same generalised
assumption on this point.  Is there any good proof (such as trade
journals) which offers better data about precisely when the formats
were introduced and withdrawn?

Julian Dyer

PS -- Robbie asked whether Patrick Boecksteijn could make an
orchestrian out of his Gotha Steck.  The late (and much missed)
John Wotton did precisely that, out of junk Gotha instrument he rescued
from the scrap heap.  Very nice too!