>[ In what year is the first mention of "Q.R.S." seen on the box
>[ labels of piano rolls produced by a Melville Clark firm?  What
>[ brand name appeared before "Q.R.S."?

The oldest QRS roll I have is dated 1913, but I have no clue what
went before, although it's obvious that rolls for the pioneering
series of Apollo players would have borne their name.

I've seen Art Apollo, Apollo de Luxe and Solo Apollo rolls, but
can't at this date remember which were the 65-note, the 6-to-the-inch
88-note (stretched 65) and the reproducing roll which launched the
9-to-the-inch future 88-note standard.  If no-one has ever seen
a 65-note QRS roll, that suggests that 'QRS' started as the first
mass-production pop 88-note rolls in 1908.  It would be good to have
a proper history of Melville Clark and his doings.

The frustrating thing for me is, I was lent a massive boys'
encyclopaedia for 1895 by Benet Meakin, the crazed UK collector,
which he had picked up in an auction and kept for its very lengthy
interview with photographs of Mr Clark and an experimental inner-player
65-note upright he was building in obvious rivalry to the Pianola,
which at that date was the clumsy and weighty prototype "pushup" of
which an example was later donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

There was a complete general-arrangement drawing and hosts of
plate-photo shots including some of the playing pneumatic deck which
was closely similar to the Angelus using large pouches shaped like
this:
   ____
  (____)

It was implicit that Clark would be in production with this the
following year, but as we know nothing happened, and the first inner
players didn't appear for another five or six years.

I was going to photocopy this article but Benet said he would do it for
me, so I gave him the encyclopaedia back, we got into intense roll
negotiations and before he could honour his word, he moved off to
Lincolnshire where it was even more difficult than usual to visit him.
(He was prone to throwing a fit of the vapours if you phoned to arrange
a visit but much easier if you simply turned up without warning.)

Benet had a mass of other printed material, including some very rare
stuff put out by Bechstein when they suddenly started making Green
Welte players in the middle of the Depression, but it was all sold off
privately by his sons after his death so there is no record of what
went where.

Dan Wilson, London