[ Ref. Marc Sachnoff in 170920 MMDigest --

Dear Marc and group,  I took a look at the photos of your big
wide multi-tune roll from the San Francisco Mission District Hoard.
Congrats again on that acquisition, by the way!

Before viewing the photos, I thought you might have a Unified
Reproduco theatre organ roll, or, (hope against hope!) a Seeburg-Smith
BH theatre pipe organ roll, each of which are spaced 9 holes per inch
and 15-1/4" wide.  (Also, the Lyon & Healy Empress Electric Solo
Expression Twin Tracker coin piano roll, and the Nelson-Wiggen Selector
Duplex piano/organ roll, have this width and spacing, and further, the
Cremona S photoplayer roll.)

However, in viewing the photos, it appears that your roll probably has
holes spaced about 6 holes to the inch, although it would be useful to
check against a ruler. Thus, there are some other possibilities.

1. A snap judgement among many mechanical music people would be for
this to be a Seeburg H or MSR roll, which of course use a 15-1/4" wide,
6 holes per inch roll, since probably over 100 Seeburg H's and probably
close to 1,000 Seeburg photoplayers (mostly of the MSR type) were
apparently originally sold all over the country.

However, looking at the holes, especially in this photo,
http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/09/20/170920_192922_700.jpg 
I don't see what would be the characteristic Seeburg H layout with:

- a few control tracks (mostly chain perforations);
- group 1 of playing notes;
- registration and percussion mostly in the middle (lock and cancel);
- group 2 of playing notes;
- and a couple extra tracks on the far margin (mandolin and triangle).

Instead, I see room for

- control tracks on the far left margin;
- two adjacent percussion holes (probably bass and snare drum),
- a whole bunch of note holes, and then possibly
- a couple control tracks at the far right margin.

2. Given that this roll came from San Francisco, which was a thriving
market around 1910 for Berry-Wood pianos and orchestrions, it's almost
a cinch that you have a Berry-Wood roll of some type.  However, this
would mean that it could be one of several varieties of rolls made for
their machines.

If the legendary Brad Hunter was correct in his MMD post at
http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200712/2007.12.24.07.html 
then, in addition to probably several coin piano roll varieties/types,
Berry-Wood made at least four varieties of orchestrion rolls (although
I'm skeptical of whether, if at all, most of them vary from each other
except in labeling): A. O. S., A. O. H., A. O. L., A. O. W.

Since this roll _does_ appear to have percussion tracks, it's probably
an orchestrion roll, although of what type, I'm not clear.  For one
thing, none of the printed media I have give an image or instrumentation
of the A. O. L.  I imagine it's the Berry-Wood orchestrion model of
which an example was sold on eBay a year or two by Brad McClincy, with
a case resembling the A. O. H. but with different glass, two ranks of
pipes, drums, and a tambourine.  But I'm not sure.  I only have data on
the other three models of Berry-Wood orchestrion, pictured in Bowers'
"Encyclopedia" and others.

Here's the scale given in "Treasures of Mechanical Music" as the
"Berry-Wood Orchestrion Roll" scale.  It is 15-1/4" wide and spaced 6
holes per inch.  Mr. Reblitz notes it "was probably" used on styles A.
O. H. R. and A. O. S. R., although Brad Hunter claimed the rolls he
had in 2007 for these two models were labeled separately (which, again,
might just be the company's choice to make up separate labels for
essentially the same rolls).

This is likely the roll you own, although I've never seen one of these
rolls in person and don't know their roll numbering scheme.  (I did get
to briefly see and hear one of the few remaining A. O. H.'s last year at
the American Treasure Tour, although it wasn't opened up at the time):

1. Rewind
2. Shutoff
3. Bass drum, cymbal, triangle
4. Snare drum
5 to 86, 82 notes in order C to A
87. Sustaining pedal on
88. Cancel pedals
89. Soft pedal on
90. Play

Mr. Reblitz notes in a previous MMD article that in the A. O. H.
restored for the Sanfilippo collection, which I think is still there
on display, "both ranks of pipes and piano play all the time" since
there are no automatic registers.  It must be a very tedious instrument
to hear, and that would explain their rarity today.

In their defense, both the A. O. H. and A. O. S. were early American
orchestrion models, put on the market in 1911 when not much in the way
of American-built orchestrions was there already (only some early
Peerless models introduced at the beginning of 1910 like the DF, DM,
DX, and A in two case designs, all using the DX roll, and all featuring
an extra instrument which played continuously with no automatic
registers!).

The Seeburg G didn't come out 'til 1912 and it was a game changer!
Wurlitzer built a couple tall case keyboard orchestrions in 1911 (style
B and C, I think), but I'm skeptical as to whether these had automatic
pipe registers.

The only contemporary U. S. built tall case keyboard orchestrion
I'm aware of with definite automatic pipe registers before 1912 was
the Peerless style O orchestrion of 1911, which thus would have been
a _huge_ game changer when it came out, although today quite rare (the
same instrumentation was used in the slightly later DeLuxe
orchestrion).

Anyway, Berry-Wood responded to Seeburg's major game-changing Style
G orchestrion with their own style A. O. W. orchestrion, which was
apparently supposed to be the last word in instrumentation, and used
a much different roll whose scale has been tentatively worked out in
a preliminary fashion here by Mr. Art Reblitz:

1-5 Unknown (one of these is probably used for rewind)
6-63 58 playing notes
64 Percussion (wood block or triangle?)
65 Percussion
66 Percussion (castanets or snare drum rim?)
67 Cancel flute and violin pipes
68 Violin pipes on
69 Flute pipes on
70 Percussion
71 Xylophone on
72 Bells on (71 and 72 might be reversed)
73 Percussion (kettle drum?)
74 Percussion (tambourine?)
75 Mandolin off
76 Mandolin on
77 Cancel xylophone and bells
78 Unknown register on
79 ?
80 Percussion (snare drum rim or castanets?)
81 Sustaining pedal on
82 Cancel sustaining pedal and soft pedal
83 Soft pedal on
84 Snare drum
85 Bass drum (or bass drum and cymbal together?)
87-90 ?

Ref. http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200712/2007.12.28.03.html 

Looking at your roll, I think it is most likely for a Berry-Wood style
A. O. H. R. orchestrion, and less likely for something else.

Hope this helps!

Andrew Barrett

 [ Many tracker scales and key frame layouts are included in the book,
 [ "The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments," copyright 2001
 [ by Arthur A. Reblitz, and in "Treasures of Mechanical Music,"
 [ copyright 1981 by Arthur A. Reblitz and Q. David Bowers.  -- Robbie