According to what I found out when writing that story of preserving
rolls, Aeolian built the Duo-Art organ and the piano Concertolas in
Garwood, New Jersey, and they nicked the owner $5,500.00 to put one on
his residence organ.
What also gets interesting is when you dig into the multiplexing going
on in the Artiste, Skinner, Roesler-Hunholz and Wurlitzer R pipe organ
player systems. It just might have been true that all the engineers
involved did indeed know each other and exchanged ideas, as engineers
are wont to do. Why not -- they all attended industry dinners from
time to time and it was one small group that did the work.
The basic technology is almost generic, but what each one did with his
own hardware often depended on what the company lawyers wanted for the
patents. H. B. Tremaine at Aeolian would never give one cent of license
payments if he could get around it.
Jim Crank
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