Along with the piano rolls by some firms, there is a companion
mystery about the Estey reproducing residence player pipe organ
rolls.  This is the only such residence player organ roll history
that I have not been able to track down and certainly would like
to know.

1) Not one roll that I have ever seen says who played it.  The
composer, yes, but not the artist who played it.  Or were all of
them drafting board arrangements?

2) There has been a persistent rumor for years that when Aeolian
managed to forget to extend their Votey two-row tracker bar patent
and it lapsed and became public domain, Estey grabbed it and used it.
Aeolian president Tremain was said to just about have had a coronary
over this lapse by his legal department.  Aeolian fiercely guarded
their player patents and sued at the drop of a hat.  Is this just
a good story or is it true?

3) The companion rumor is that Estey copied a lot of the 116-note
Aeolian organ rolls and used them for their own reed and pipe organs.
Maybe changing a note here or there to cause problems for someone
thinking of suing them.

So who really did play these residence organ rolls?  The Estey roll
count is 1027 titles.

4) If Estey recorded their own rolls, where was this done and on what
organ?  What was the stop list for this organ, if it actually existed?

5) Did Estey punch and replicate their own rolls, or was this
contracted to some outside firm?  If so, who did it for Estey?

6) When Estey folded up, what became of the recording machine and roll
duplicators (if any), the master organ rolls and the library of playing
rolls? Were they junked or did someone obtain the whole thing?

If a piece of music is still copyrighted, pay the ASCAP fee and forget
it.  The amount is microscopic and not worth getting all worked up
about.  We will be doing that with our roll scanning project.

Jim Crank