-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD --

Robbie:  I've wanted to mention something for many years regarding the
Q.R.S Christmas Collector's Rolls, something that is very important to
me and that might be interesting to the rest of the MMD crowd.

I started making piano rolls when I was in the seventh grade. I used
to mark these rolls out right on the piano and perforate them using a
razor blade and spool them onto good spools from junked rolls.  Anyway,
I became very fond of a restorer who was quite famous in Milwaukee at
the time, Arnold 'Arnie' Neuhaus.  Many hundreds of hours were spent
with Arnie at his Burleigh Street shop where he taught me just about
everything I know about player piano restoration; I even got the
opportunity to help him on his large Link orchestrion.

Arnie knew of my roll cutting interest and enjoyed listening to the
rolls that I made, several of which I gave him as gifts.  One day
he changed forever the way that I perforated my rolls by giving me
a CS Osbourne 1/16" leather punch that he had affixed a handle to.
Immediately my rolls began to take on a much more professional look
and I was able to make chain punches.

In November of 1982 I decided that I wanted to make Arnie a very
special roll for Christmas.  Shortly before I began on Arnie's Christmas
roll, I was browsing the Christmas section at the Kohl's Department
Store at 124th and North and saw the spools of Christmas gift-wrap.
I had a thought that I would make a very unusual Christmas roll indeed
by perforating the music onto gift-wrap.

My first concern was the paper itself and then the length.  I must have
torn open about a dozen or so different gift-wraps, of which I liked
the design, to feel the paper quality.  I found one that felt about
right that had Christmas wreathes and maybe some other things like
candy canes on it and purchased it to make Arnie's Christmas roll.

I don't know how wide the wrap was, but it needed considerable trimming
to get down to 11-3/4".  I believe the length was something like 15
feet; I don't really recall.  I just remember that I had to space the
perforations pretty close together to accommodate the song, "Parade of
the Wooden Soldiers", which was heavily arranged in the style of Wade
and Swift.

The completed roll was given to Arnie during the first week or so of
December. He was delighted and we both pumped through the roll several
times before putting another roll on that I made for him on regular
Q.R.S blank piano roll paper, "The Broke and Busted Blues".  I was
playing the other roll when the phone in his showroom rang and he
motioned to me to stop pumping the pedals.  The phone was about six feet
away from the piano that I was playing and I heard the conversation
quite plainly.

Arnie was on the phone with Q.R.S to check on his roll stock and still
had the unboxed Christmas roll I made him in his hand.  He spent less
than two minutes speaking about the roll stock and then mentioned the
Christmas roll I had made for him.  Whoever was on the other end of
that line at Q.R.S was mighty interested in my Christmas roll and spent
a long time discussing it with Arnie, to the point where he pulled
the roll out about five feet and looked at it to describe the quality.
My name was mentioned and Arnie talked me up pretty good.  Arnie hung
up the phone and that was that.

In 1983 when I saw the first Q.R.S Christmas roll, I nearly fainted
dead away.  They assumed all credit for the idea of this marvelous,
novel and new Christmas Collector's roll when they had gotten the idea
from me through Arnie that afternoon nearly a year earlier.  Q.R.S
obviously had the right to do what they did and they have provided some
really nice rolls to a lot of people to brighten their holidays, but
I always wished they would have given credit where credit is due.

I know Arnie talked with them at one point, but it didn't do any good,
but now you all know the truth of the origin of the Q.R.S Christmas
Collector's Rolls and if anyone wants the very first Christmas roll cut
on genuine early 1980's gift-wrap, then contact Arnold or Bob Neuhaus
and see if they'll sell you the roll.  The roll, as all my original
rolls are, is clearly stamped on the back of the leader with it's date
of creation, November, 1982, and is signed by me as well; it may also
bear a Christmas wish for Arnie, but I just can't remember.

Musically yours,
Todd R. Lindvig