Back in the early 1950s, Merv Fulton of Tulare, California, purchased
the Welte Philharmonic pipe organ master rolls, stock production copies
and machinery from the W.W. Kimball Company of Chicago.  Kimball had
acquired all of this with their purchase in 1931 of the Welte-Tripp
Organ Corp.

The machinery included the recording machine, perforator and a special
single punch punching machine used to punch out the ink line master
rolls produced by the recording machine as well as those produced by
hand on a special drafting table.  Merv referred to this single note
puncher as the "sewing machine" (cuz that's what it looked like!).
You can see a woman operating this machine in the lower right of the
attached photo, taken at Welte-Tripp sometime in the early 1930s and
reproduced in the Welte chapter of Dave Junchen's "Encyclopedia of
the American Theater Organ."

Merv assembled and built a pipe organ to match the specification of the
Welte organ with advice and consultation with Lloyd Davey, former Welte
Company employee and, at the time, having his own pipe organ service
business in California.  Merv produced a series of hi-fi recordings of
select Welte artists.

After he finished with his project, Merv moved on to other things
and he sold the recording machine to Jim Ballantine of New Jersey.
The 1,000 master rolls, the 4,000 production copies and the perforator
and sewing machine puncher were sold to Bob Johnson of Rossville,
Georgia, sometime in the early 1960's.  (Bob was both a collector and
dealer in pipe organs, antique machinery and steam locomotives.)

Bob sold a good portion of the Welte rolls over a ten year span, then
sold the remainders of the roll collection to a private individual.
What seems to have disappeared is the single note punching machine.
Knowing Bob, as I did, he would not have destroyed it, so it most
likely got sold to a collector or museum.

Is there anyone here that knows of the where-abouts of this machine?
Bob died about four years ago and attempts to contact his daughter have
not been successful.

By the way, at one time Bob owned the large Welte Brisgovia orchestrion
that came from the mansion of William H. Miner, Chazy, New York, and
now in the collection of Bob Gilson.

Where is the Welte organ roll single note punching machine?

Dave Krall

 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/18/06/15/180615_075228_RollDepartmentWelte-Tripp.jpg