Here is the first part of an article I wrote for the Player Piano Group
Bulletin #140 in Autumn 1996 called "Aeolian roll numbering explained
(?)". It is written from a London perspective so fully covers the
American roll production of Aeolian in Meriden. The London factory at
Hayes issued many American roll masters but also added material of its
own. What follows was written in 1996, so could be improved.

Catalogue-fever (it can't be anything rational!) has induced me to
try and make sense of the many varieties of Aeolian roll on offer.
Disentangling the way various Aeolian brands allocated roll numbers
may be interesting in its own right to roll historians, and perhaps of
some practical use in identifying rolls in postal auctions. Although a
first glance in any roll list seems to show complete numerical anarchy,
there really is some structure to get to grips with, as I hope this
article will show.

This exercise couldn't be undertaken without a wide spread of
information to look for patterns, similarities and differences. Having
been fortunate enough to be lent copies of assorted Aeolian catalogues
from various sources, these form the basis of the observations in this
article. I also have to admit to being started off by an article of
Rex Lawson's in PPG Bulletin 69, April 1978, in which he discussed the
main London production of 88n rolls. The catalogues referred to here are:

1913 Metro-art 88n (both British and American versions)
1913 Themodist 65n (American)
1914 Themodist & Metrostyle 65n and 88n (British)
1915 Various monthly Themodist/Universal/Metro-Art bulletins (American)
1920 Melodee and Universal 88n (American)
1932 Themodist & Metrostyle 65n and 88n (British)

Relatively few Themodist rolls were issued after the 1932 catalogue,
so coupled with the 1914 catalogue it gives more or less a complete
overview of Aeolians's total British Themodist issues. The bulk of
post-1932 issues were dance rolls, the few Themodist ones often being
piano novelty pieces or versions of popular music not in dance tempo.
[I have recently completely listed the post-1932 rolls, a few hundred
issues.]

The 1914 catalogue assists the study of roll numbering by listing rolls
in numerical order, as well as alphabetically by composer and by title.
The 1932 catalogue is alphabetical by title only, with a composer
index, but not really aimed at the numerologist.

The Metro-Art catalogue complements the 1914 Themodist, because these
rolls were omitted from the Themodist catalogue. The assorted American
Universal and Melodee lists (which also incorporate Metro-art) expand
on areas only touched on by the British catalogues, and give a wider
view of what turns out to be a fairly cohesive system.

So, to the rolls themselves. The key observation about Aeolian's
commonest approach to roll numbering is that rolls are grouped into
series using the first 2 digits of a 5 digit number (or just
occasionally the first 3 digits of a 6 digit number, more of which
later). The first two digits of a roll number are therefore sufficient
to identify exactly what the roll is (with a very few exceptions, where
the original series was withdrawn well before the re-use of its
numbers). This standard numbering is common to both British and
American production, so series from 11 to 55 are British, and series
60 to 99 are American.

A couple of examples: 38123 is from the 38 series, so is a Meloto
song roll; TL22123 is from the 22 series, so is either a Themodist or
Metrostyle 88n roll produced in London -- the T prefix shows it to be
Themodist. This generalisation applies to products cut for Aeolian to
sell themselves, such as Themodist, Metrostyle, Meloto, Aeolian and
some Universal rolls, together with the various 65n labels. It does
not apply to rolls cut for resale by other companies such as Angelus-
Artistyle or Triumph, who used their own numbering series.

There are two main exceptions to the 2+3 digit numbering approach. Not
surprisingly, the earliest 65n Pianola rolls were issued from number 1,
all being American in origin, and later another series also starting
at 1 was issued in London, these rolls carrying an L prefix to indicate
their origin. These numbers were first used on labels such as Piano,
Piano Music, Aeriol Piano, and some completely anonymous labels, and
were carried right the way through as the labels evolved.

In the end Aeolian obviously realised the stupidity of relying solely
on initial letters to differentiate between titles and stopped issuing
new titles in both of these series in favour of standardised numbering.
The 1914 catalogue gives firm instructions to customers that 'The
varying initial letters have their use in the factory and stockrooms
and should be considered an integral part of the number, and must
always be quoted when ordering.' Clearly they had frequent problems in
working out which title had been ordered!

The other main exception is the British Universal S-series of 88n
rolls, which covered exactly the same titles as the Themodist catalogue
(the catalogues are the same typesetting with only the numbers altered,
so the same titles are in both series). These were issued in order from
S-2 onwards, using even numbers only, reaching around S14000 by 1928.
Other Universal rolls use standard numbering styles: on 65n they have
the same numbers as their Metrostyle equivalents, but 88n Universal
issues have their own numbering sequences. American Universal issues
seem to be quite different, a single block of numbers seemingly being
used randomly for issues on the various Aeolian labels.

Despite the fact that rolls were issued in series covering most of
the available 2-digit combinations, with a few 3-digit series as well,
there are nothing like that many thousand titles! Some series were
issued in order from xx000 to xx999, and these form the bulk of the
actual rolls issued. Other series were clearly reserved for specific
purposes, and use very few of the available numbers. Sometimes the
scatter of numbers suggests that they were allocated on an ad-hoc
basis.

The actual date of original issue is quite irrelevant for most rolls,
of course. Dance rolls normally had a limited life and simply vanished
from the catalogue when their appeal waned. Arranged classical rolls
hung around for a very long time. The 1932 catalogue still lists a few
65n titles with numbers early in the original American series that must
have been issued at the turn of the century. The 88n Themodist rolls
were, I am told, originally cut from 65n masters-recognisable by having
only long slotted notes without bridges-and some were later re-mastered
in the familiar bridged-note form with unbridged notes indicating the
theme. The same catalogue number would be kept.

Many titles were issued on a variety of numbers, typically starting
with an ordinary 65n Pianola roll in the American or London 1-9999
series, progressing to a Metrostyled and possibly later Themed 65n
roll, and ending up as an 88n Themodist roll. A further number was
normally used if a roll was also given an artist-interpreted Metrostyle
line. Sometimes a 'new arrangement' was also available. In 1914 this
gives, for instance, Liszt's 12th Hungarian Rhapsody in five versions:
Pianola 9100, 'New version' Pianola L3619, Themodist 65n TY9100, Artist
interpreted by Francois Planté 74113, 88n Themodist T82932. Only the
first and last of these survived to 1932.

Julian Dyer
Wokingham, Berkshire, UK