Hello!  A friend of mine recently purchased a fair sized collection
of 88-note rolls.  Mixed in the collection were a number of QRS rolls
in the most drab/flimsy of boxes that were completely devoid of any
of the usual alligator or textured paper covering that characterized
the early QRS boxes.  All of the titles thus packaged were American
patriotic or WW2-themed music, and all of the songs were copyrighted
between 1940 and 1944.  Clearly these were produced during the war,
and the spartan boxes are apparently reflective of shortages of their
usual materials.

This has me wondering about QRS production during the war years and
I have some questions that I hope someone can answer:

1. Was American-made player piano roll output rationed or restricted
in any way during the war?  So many other consumer goods were not
available at all, so it makes sense that consumer roll production would
have been regulated too.  But I also wonder, since piano roll sales
were so far down by the 1940s anyway, if production was already low
enough to even bother restricting.

2. Also, did QRS have any wartime military contracts for non-player
piano related work?  It is well known that so many companies switched
over from civilian production to military -- the Lionel toy train
company, for example, made compass binnacles and taffrail logs for the
US Navy and suspended all production of toys until after wars end --
but paper perforation technology does not seem to me to have much
military application and is not readily adapted to other purposes.
If QRS did not have any military production contracts, were they really
engaged only in regular roll production?  Was not paper rationed during
the war?

3. And, of course, if QRS did produce some sort of war-related items
under government contract, what were they and does anyone out there
have any surviving examples?

Thank you and best regards,
Troy Taylor --
in _very_ foggy Edmonds, Washington, USA