Recently someone inquired as to who was responsible for the Ampico
re-cuts that bore a green Tempo stamp, and little else.  They also
commented on the slip-shod labels on the box.

Someone threw their two-cents in, saying that it was probably done
by Ray Siou (which it was not!).  Ray was only the dealer of rolls and
not the manufacturer.  The majority, if not all of his re-cuts, were
manufactured by Play-Rite.  Ray was offering a product at wholesale
prices (and sometimes even less than that).  The multi-tune Ampico and
Duo-Art rolls were initially ordered by Ray, and sold without any
mention of the manufacturer.

Play-Rite later sold the same multi-tune rolls with their labels and
printed leaders.  Ray's versions only had a generic label on the box
and the roll.  And as for printing on the leaders, there would only be
large numerals depicting the suggested tempos (in black ink).

As for the quality of the paper, both Ray's re-cuts and Play-Rite's
version were punched on the same quality paper.  Ray's were mostly, if
not all, on the golden paper.  Play-Rite's was also punched on the
golden paper as well as the standard white paper.  The quality of the
two different colored papers were almost identical.

Today I had the opportunity to play both the Ray Siou re-cuts and the
Play-Rite re-cuts on my friend's Duo-Art.  Both had the same inherent
problem in the positioning of the holes over the tracker bar.  The note
holes lined up almost a hundred percent, but the expression holes did
not, and some of the snake-bites were not punched clearly through (on
both the Ray Siou re-cuts and the ones by Play-Rite).

And furthermore, if it weren't for these certain individuals (who go
through the time, trouble and expense to make these re-cuts available),
there would be a lot less collectors out there, and original rolls would
be going for $100+ each.  (Figure if a multi-tune roll has an average
of four tunes on it, a four-tune roll would go for $400 instead of the
$12 average that Ray Siou was asking for them!)

Now for the matter of the green Tempo stamp on the rolls, it could most
likely be one of the early re-cuts that were being offered by Larry
Givens.

Just my two cents,
Sincerely,
Dale F. Rowe
Bronx, New York