Before I started to write this post, I checked the MMD Archives.  There
are approximately 15 to 18 posts on this subject.

I know very little about Filmusic Picturolls so I called Joe Rinaudo,
who has probably forgotten more about Fotoplayers and the rolls that
were played on them than others have learned.  In the course of our
conversation, Joe revealed that the company was founded sometime in
1915 by five men, one of whom was Cecil B. DeMille.  Joe has spent
hours at the Los Angeles County Courthouse trying to find some history
on this company.

The goal of this new enterprise was to produce 88-note player piano
rolls that could be used to accompany silent films.  While companies
such as Seeburg, Wurlitzer and others produced automatic instruments
to be used in motion picture theaters, the undisputed king of builders
was the American Photo Player Company.

A search of the factory records of the company that produced the
blowers for the instruments reveals that about 4500 units were made
in the Oakland, California, factory.  As Joe says, less than 1% of
those instruments exist today.

The Filmusic Company [of Los Angeles] was in business until 1929.
During the short fourteen years that they produced music rolls,
1300 individual rolls were offered for sale.  As of this date, no
comprehensive catalog of all of the titles has been found.  Joe says
his research indicates the rolls were sold through licensed dealers
such as Sherman, Clay & Co.  I have two original catalogs, one of
which was published by Sherman Clay and is dated 1918.

The rolls were numbered quite logically from 1 to 1300.  For some
unknown reason, roll number 10 has never surfaced.  Indeed, one of the
catalogs that I have lists rolls starting with number 1 and ends with
roll number 100.  Roll number 10 is not listed, which leads one to
believe that for some reason or other there was never a roll with that
number.

In the mid-1920s the company may have seen the writing on the wall
(or screen) and started to produce a series of popular music rolls
under the "Popular" label.

Because of the circumstances under which the rolls were used -- often
in theaters that stayed open 12 hours a day -- many copies of these
rolls were simply "played to extinction," as Tim Baxter says.  Recent
sales of these rolls on eBay show astronomical prices being paid for
music punched in 100-year-old paper.

Some years back, I purchased a large number of MIDI files and in the
collection were a number of Filmusic rolls and a smaller number of
Popular rolls as well.  The quality of the scans is quite good and
I have punched some of the music into paper.  If you are interested in
this type of music, and my previous sales indicate that a lot of people
are, I have prepared a webpage listing rolls I have for sale.  You will
find them at http://www.egaida.com/ 

If you see something you like I encourage you to email me your wants.
I made only four copies of each roll.

I would encourage our readers to contribute more information to this
thread, as the company certainly deserves its place in automatic
musical instrument history.  You, gentle reader, can make that happen
by sharing what you know about the subject.

Kindest regards from South Texas,
Ed Gaida - Preserving music by punching holes in paper.

 [ See http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/KWIC/F/filmusic.html 
 [ -- Robbie