In 070720 MMDigest, Dave Bowers wrote about the Automatic Musical
Company coin piano,  "I have only seen two of them, both of which had
the roll mechanism in a wooden bin below one side of the keyboard,
using an endless roll."

Having never seen an endless roll player piano I am wondering, how did
it work?  I understand the roll is not wound on a take-up spool but
flops into a box and folds over itself again and again.  My question
is, how did it get pulled back up to go back over the tracker bar?

It would have to avoid the tracker bar tubing and have a unique
transport and tracking mechanism.  This setup was only because of the
inherent limitation of coin-operated roll playing instruments, lack of
selection and variety and the endless roll solved only one of the
"problems".

Also I wonder how these "rolls" were made, distributed and installed in
the piano.  How do you change the rolls on these pianos and what kind
of boxes did they come in?

I always get a chuckle to see the various designs and devices to get
the public to put yet another nickel in.

Richard Moody