In MMD 990513, Steven Kent Goodman asks, "... if Clark was using
masters from QRS, wouldn't they have already been punched?"

That depends on how the masters were made.  The QRS Recording Piano,
which they used for "hand-played" rolls, creates a penciled master.
The pencil lines are then cut out to make the production master.

As for the QRS "arranged" rolls of that period, I don't know if the
arranging staff drew the rolls out with pencils, and then cut out the
pencil marks to make a master, or of they cut directly, by-passing any
drawing process.  I would be inclined to believe they drew first, then
cut, because it is easier to correct an errant pencil line than an
errant perforation.

In MMD990401, Robbie showed us that Automatic A-roll A-1146 and
QRS 3226, "The Farmer Took Another Load Away," are the same arrangement,
but that certain alterations had been made in the conversion.  The use
of pencil masters would have made the alterations easier when doing the
conversion.

There is repeated evidence that Cook (who is credited with QRS 3226)
found it easier to arrange rolls than to hand-play them and then heavily
edit them.  If QRS arrangers used pencils in creating their masters,
one can assume Cook did too, since he didn't begin to use his step-
recording piano/perforator until the early 1930's.

What may have been going on with the penciled masters in the Coin Slot
article was not actually perforating from a master (although that's
what they wanted you to think), but perhaps some part of the process
of creating a perforated master from a penciled master from QRS.  It
strikes me that Clark might not have wanted the public to know that
they didn't do their own arranging.

Bryan Cather

 [ I suspect that Clark simply tee'd the bass and treble hoses to make
 [ a draft A-roll from the QRS master.  Then they placed gummed paper
 [ patches over the few regions of bad notes and used a hand punch for
 [ additions.  If you will compare the image of A-1146 with QRS 3226 you
 [ will see very little difference beyond the folded scale.  With this
 [ easy conversion a pencil-mark intermediate draft wasn't needed.
 [ Play-Rite did some conversions in this manner, too.   -- Robbie