Not long ago, I was asked to look over the music machine collection
from the estate of an old time collector, Robert Barns.  Mr. Barns
lived in New Jersey and was a good friend to one of my customers.
I went to his house where I met with Mr. Barn's daughter, Sue.

After spending the better part of a day looking over his collection,
I regretted never having the pleasure of meeting him.  The objects
Mr. Barns left behind told quite a bit about the man.  The downstairs
of his home had an excess of electronic equipment, gigantic quartz
crystals he had grown for use in electronic circuits, a piece of
uranium encased in lead, a few dismantled pianos, lots of piano rolls
and a rebuilt Knabe Ampico grand.

Mr. Barns had spent many hours with his Ampico and had built what
he called a "hot wire".  This was a fine wire loop with an electric
current running through it that he used to burn holes in the paper
rolls.  Placing a roll on his Ampico, he used the tracker bar as a
guide for the hole spacing.  With great patience, Ampico A expression
was added to several dozen rolls.

Half of the rolls that were made into Ampico music were modified QRS
rolls, the rest of the rolls were made from scratch on an old Star
Perforator.  The Star perforator is the size of an old typewriter.
Unlike the Leabarjan, it has the ability to cut any number of notes at
one time.  Black and white tabs located underneath a keyboard chart can
be lowered to punch as many notes at one time as the operator wishes.

My reason for writing is to find a person who would like to buy all of
these rolls with the thought in mind that they would produce some new
recuts.  If you think you'd like to watch over these rolls please
write.  I can provide a few photos of the rolls Mr. Barn's has produced.
The remains of his personal web page are still cached at
  http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:UxX3HgApSNMJ:mywebpages.comcast.net/royb1/+%22star+perforator%22+barns&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=u

Paul Manganaro

 [ If the link above fails, try http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:UxX3HgApSNMJ:mywebpages.comcast.net/royb1/+Bob+Barns+KB2IKC&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
 [ -- Robbie