The mystery still remains concerning the Estey player organ rolls.  If
anyone can shed some light on this, I would certainly appreciate it.

The Estey website ( http://www.esteyorgan.com ) is quite good and does
list the big roll library.  But that is as far as it goes.  Nothing on
what the recording organ was, where it was located, where the rolls
were duplicated and by whom, or anything else pertaining to Estey
player organ rolls.

Questions:

1) Why are the rolls labeled only with the title of the piece, the
roll number and the composer?  This is a big library of player rolls,
with some good music on them.

2) Why is the name of the organist never mentioned?  One long-heard
idea was that Estey copied the Aeolian 116-note rolls, slightly
changed the notes to be able to say it was a new rendition, which
was the reason no organist was listed.  If so, this was one legally
risky way to build up a library for their organs.  The other reason
heard for years is that no one actually played the music, because all
were draftboard editions.  But if so, who did them and where was it
done.

3) Did Estey make their own rolls in the factory, or were these all
contracted out to commercial roll manufacturing companies like Clark?
What is very strange about the Estey website is that, while they do a
good job of showing the factory and such, nothing is shown about the
roll end of the business.  Which leads one to think that perhaps Estey
did not record or duplicate their own rolls, but contracted the work 
out.

Any help or suggestions on where to find answers would be nice to
receive.

Jim Crank