Tom Hutchinson was asking who produced 'Themed' rolls -- the answer is
quite a lot of companies.  Aeolian made rolls under their own name such
as Themodist, and also rolls that were not as obviously Aeolian which
were labelled "Universal Music Roll Company".  The same pairing was
used for the British factory as well as the American one.

The British variants were also sold under a number of other brand
names, obligingly boxed and labelled by Aeolian: anonymous ones such
as "Perfecta", for stores such as Harrods, for other player-makers such
as Broadwood and Autopiano.  All of them have the same serial numbers.
Some, such as Broadwood and Harrods, seem to have been fairly
short-lived.

Actually, the very earliest incarnations of the Universal roll didn't
have theming: they were truly universal, being just a standard 88-note
roll.  The switch to making all of the rolls accented was quite early
on, at least for the classical series, but the American Metro-Art /
Universal pairings, right into the late 'teens, have unaccented
Universal versions.

The situation in Europe was that almost all rolls were accented and,
as well as Aeolian's arranged rolls, there's a good selection of
hand-played ones, which are a better choice for exercising the
hand-controls on Duo-Art pianos.  The Hupfeld / Animatic library is
huge and has some superb material (a close cousin to the Welte
catalogue, being the same age and location), and was also excellently
manufactured so the music often sounds better than on other brands.
Look to postal auctions for them, such as the Player Piano Group's.

Julian Dyer