Mechanical Music Articles and Stories

Chicago Coin-Operated Piano and Orchestrion Rolls

Copyright 2015, Arthur A. Reblitz; adapted from the 2-part article
originally published in the Jan/Feb and Mar/Apr 2016 AMICA Bulletins

Introduction

This two-part article (Click here to go to Part Two, which continues on this same page following Part One) began as a talk for the 2015 AMICA Convention in Denver, Colorado. The convention highlighted the Melville Clark Piano Co., an important pioneer in player piano development and its many variations of Apollo player and expression pianos. Closely related to the piano company was the QRS Company, well-known for making player piano rolls for over 100 years.

My talk focused on the little-known Coin-Operated Division of the QRS Company. This two-part article will delve into more details of this enterprise and its relationships with Marquette (Cremona), Seeburg, Operators (Coinola and Reproduco), Clark Orchestra Roll Co., and even Operators’ own music roll division that later produced Columbia and Capitol rolls.

Part One discusses the history of the QRS Coin-Operated Roll Division and how it came to supply rolls for most of the Chicago-based coin piano and orchestrion companies from about 1907 through 1919. Part Two will cover the major changes that occurred after Melville Clark’s death in November, 1918, including the transfer of the QRS Coin-Operated division to Clark Orchestra Rolls, and the formation of Operators’ own roll-making department.

Some of this information has been published piecemeal in other articles and several books, but this is the first time the pieces have been assembled into a history that shows how the Chicago coin piano roll business evolved. Important reference materials that made this possible include press releases and advertisements from music trade magazines of the era, corporate minutes of the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., and correspondence and a detailed interview with the late P. M. Keast of Elmhurst, Illinois. Keast worked for the three largest companies in the field: the QRS coin-op division, Clark Orchestra Rolls, and finally Operators. Without his razor-sharp memories of production methods and personnel involved in the three companies, much of this history would have been lost.

Matt Jaro’s extensive collection of Chicago coin piano and orchestrion rolls and his comprehensive rollography were important in verifying certain timelines, and the author’s reference collection of approximately 100 original O rolls from the late Tom Sprague helped to establish the era of the QRS involvement with Operators. Glenn Grabinsky provided information on early origins of music roll hole spacing dimensions, and Julian Dyer shared details of Aeolian’s role in creating standardized roll specifications. Jere DeBacker provided the photos of Apollo music rolls and much historical information on Melville Clark and Apollo pianos.

Part One—The QRS Coin-Operated Roll Division

Melville Clark’s portrait as it appeared in the February 15, 1912 issue of The Presto. If the picture was recent, he would have been 62 years old.

Ernest G. Clark’s portrait from the March 25, 1909 issue of The Presto. Ernest Clark was 34 years old in 1909.

The mysterious, little-known division of QRS that supplied music to the Chicago coin piano and orchestrion industry: its people, products, and its ties to the other important Chicago roll makers.

Practically everyone who ever owned a home player piano in the U.S. during the twentieth century knew about QRS player piano rolls. They were so popular that at least a few QRS rolls have remained with almost every player piano to this day. The QRS Music Roll Co. initially was part of the Melville Clark Piano Co., and QRS eventually grew to become the largest maker of rolls for home player pianos and expression pianos, lasting over 100 years.

Melville Clark (1850-1918) established the piano company bearing his name in Chicago in 1900. In early 1905 he moved the operation to a large new factory in DeKalb, about 60 miles west. He was a leading pioneer in player piano development, producing many firsts in the industry, including an 88-note push-up called the Concert Grand Piano Player in 1902, the first 88-note grand player piano with internal mechanisms in 1904, and many variations on the Apollo player piano using several different types of rolls, some including electric motors, expression mechanisms, and even phonographs. Melville was granted dozens of U.S. patents for player reed organs and pianos. Many of his innovations were demonstrated at the 2015 AMICA Convention in Denver by Apollo specialist and historian Jere DeBacker.

While Melville ran the piano company in the early years, his younger brother Ernest (1866-1945) was the president of QRS, organized in 1899, the year before the piano company was established. Ernest helped develop perforators and other roll-making equipment. He also held at least a dozen patents of his own on player mechanisms and roll-making equipment.

The main product of QRS in the early 1900s was its extensive line of rolls for home player pianos, but it also had a separate department known as the Coin-Operated Roll Division. The products of the division were never advertised, and the division was only known to companies that made coin pianos and orchestrions. In its day, it produced most of the rolls used by Cremona (Marquette Piano Co.), Seeburg, Coinola (Operators Piano Co.), Berry-Wood, and others.

The coin-op division was never discussed in QRS roll catalogs and seldom mentioned in trade magazines or other literature, and it seems even some of the owners of the company in more recent times don’t know about this rich part of its history. Why was this very active and prosperous business never publicized?

Melville Clark made and promoted high-quality player pianos for people who could afford the best, going after the same market that the reproducing piano makers would later target. QRS aimed for an equally prestigious image for its rolls that would play high-class music on these beautiful pianos. What would potential customers think if they knew the same elegant music was being used as the basis for so-called “honky-tonk” electric pianos down at the saloon on the other side of the tracks? To help maintain their classy image, there was no point in publicizing the coin-operated division, and it remained unknown to the public, while the same public happily inserted coins into pianos to hear the same music arrangements in all sorts of businesses.

Most large music stores maintained a similar separation between product lines. Home player pianos, elegant reproducing pianos, and coin-operated instruments were segregated in the stores of large city music dealers, including Wurlitzer in Cincinnati; Lyon and Healy in Chicago; Jenkins in Kansas City; Knight-Campbell in Denver, and others. These large stores typically had elegant display salons for their fine home instruments, and relegated the coin-operated pianos to an upper floor.

QRS Player Piano Roll Sizes and Hole Spacing

The QRS coin-operated division offered four standardized sizes of rolls for commercial customers, based on four already existing widths and hole spacing dimensions of QRS home player piano rolls. What are the origins of these roll sizes and spacings?

Many early 65-note player piano rolls had a tracker bar spacing of 6 holes per inch. The Aeolian Co. of New York was already using this spacing for its 65-note Pianola push-up piano player, first mass-marketed in 1898. Certain other companies followed suit, including Melville Clark for 58- and 65-note piano player and player piano rolls.

When Melville Clark introduced its 88-note push-up—the Apollo Concert Grand Piano Player—in 1902, the spacing was kept at 6 per inch, requiring rolls that were 15¼” wide to accommodate all the notes. This meant QRS had 6 per inch perforators for 11¼” rolls and 15¼” rolls at least by 1902.

In 1908, a group of manufacturers decided to standardize 88-note piano rolls, based on precedent established by Aeolian: a spacing of 9 holes per inch, a paper width of 11¼”, and a common drive spindle so any rolls could be played on any player piano. Leading up to this, Clark pushed for 8 per inch spacing, but Aeolian’s standard prevailed. This early example of standardization benefited the entire industry, just as the standardized cassette tape did about 75 years later.

QRS went on to make 9 per inch rolls in the same two widths as their 6 per inch rolls: 11¼” and 15¼”. That means they had perforators for these four standard size rolls for home use:

• 6 per inch, 11¼” – 65-note player piano rolls.
• 6 per inch, 15¼” – Apollo Concert Grand 88-note player piano rolls.
• 9 per inch, 11¼” – 88 note player piano, Art Apollo, QRS red X.
• 9 per inch, 15¼” – Solo Apollo with two pneumatic stacks; & Solo Art Apollo with two stacks and automatic expression.

To see examples of all four roll types, click here or on the thumbnail image to the right.

The Origin of Hole Spacing

Where did the most common player piano roll hole spacings originate? Glenn Grabinsky has studied this extensively and written a paper on the subject, from which the following information is drawn.

The Beginning of the Chicago Coin Piano Industry

J.P. Seeburg as pictured in the October 21, 1909 issue of The Presto, at the age of 33.

When J.P. Seeburg (1871-1958) entered the player piano industry in 1907, the coin-operated piano manufacturing business was located mainly in the eastern U.S. Each existing coin piano maker had its own roll making department, with in-house drawing-board arrangers on its staff. Wurlitzer and the North Tonawanda Musical Instrument Works (both in North Tonawanda, NY), Peerless (St. Johnsville, NY), and Automatic Musical Company (the predecessor of Link, Binghamton, NY) each had its own characteristic musical style created by one or several drawing board arrangers.

Then J.P. Seeburg entered the industry and changed everything. In 1905, he formed the Marquette Piano Co. in Chicago with Axel Larsen and a few others. Shop personnel included Oscar Nelson and Peter Wiggen. Marquette’s initial products were player actions, mainly designed by Larson, for small piano companies that did not want to make their own.

In 1907, Seeburg and his associates developed the Cremona coin piano for Marquette. He also claimed in a press release that he originated what would become the very popular 10-tune style “A” roll at that time. He copied the size and hole spacing from the standardized 65-note, 6 per inch home player piano roll, but used 58 holes for notes and the remaining ones for soft and sustaining pedals, mandolin attachment, rewind, play, shutoff, and one spare that would later be used for an extra instrument. (From here forward in the text, quotation marks will be omitted from roll style letters “A” and others for simplicity, unless at the beginning of a sentence.)

Coin Piano Rolls for the New Chicago Industry

The First Rolls for Cremona Coin Pianos

Based on J.P. Seeburg’s 1907 claim, the first style A rolls were made for use on his Cremona pianos, since that brand preceded his own Seeburg brand by two years. Instead of forming his own roll arranging and manufacturing department, Seeburg went to an already-existing roll making company for what would become the standard A roll. What company was that? There were only three significant companies in Chicago known to have manufactured A rolls in the early ’teens: H.C. Kibbey, U.S. Music Roll Company, and QRS.

H.C. Kibbey Manufacturing Co. began manufacturing and selling piano rolls in 1907. Trade magazines don’t mention what type of rolls these were, but in the same year, Kibbey was also selling roll mechanisms for coin pianos, so it’s possible that they made coin piano rolls this early. The author has seen one early “Standard” brand endless-roll piano that played early Kibbey rolls something like A rolls but with different control perforations, evidently a different adaptation of 65-note player piano rolls. Some, but not all of these rolls also had bass and snare drum perforations along the edges.

All Kibbey A rolls observed by the author have unique “boat-shaped” holes, with the trailing edge of each hole coming to a point. In some rolls, a small three-digit catalog number is stamped at the beginning of each tune instead of numbers 1 through 10. The paper is manila to light tan color. The unusual hole shape, numbering, and paper type is not seen in any known Cremona or Seeburg rolls, ruling out Kibbey as a possible supplier.

The United States Music Roll Co. made A rolls, but its first series did not begin until September 1911 with roll #950. A few original early U.S. rolls examined by Matt Jaro are on different-colored paper, have perforations that are coarser and of a different size than in early Cremona or Seeburg rolls, and the rubber-stamped roll numbers and tune numbers are different. That rules out U.S. as a possible supplier for early Cremona and Seeburg brand rolls.

QRS, on the other hand, is known to have supplied Cremona A rolls to Marquette at least by 1911, and J.P. Seeburg S rolls (Seeburg’s name for its earliest A rolls) starting in 1912. These rolls are similar to certain contemporary QRS player piano rolls, on the same color paper (gray or green) and with the same fine quality of perforating. By 1907, QRS already had a large catalog of old standards and popular hits for 6 per inch, 11¼” wide 65-note player piano rolls. It also had equipment for transcribing arrangements from one of its perforating formats to another. It was a relatively simple matter to convert existing tunes to the new A roll format too.

According to Matt Jaro, who has compiled an extensive rollography of styles A, G, 4X and H rolls, no A rolls from 1907-1910 have been documented to date. The earliest Cremona roll known to Matt is #151, featuring eight tunes from 1911 and two from 1910. (Cremona rolls numbered 1 and 2 also exist, but they contain tunes as late as 1913 so they must have been review rolls or were specially issued in a different series, later than #151.)

Since Kibbey A rolls have different-shaped perforations, U.S. Music A rolls were not made until 1911, neither company used the same color paper, and QRS is known to have made Cremona A rolls from 1911 through 1919, it seems certain that QRS was already supplying them from the very start in mid-1907. If they began the original numbering series with #1 (as did Seeburg S rolls a few years later), that would account for an average of about three new rolls per month during the first four years.

With the creation of the A roll in 1907, the QRS coin-operated roll division was established, bringing new musical diversity to the coin-operated piano beyond the in-house arrangements created by Wurlitzer, Peerless, and the other Eastern U.S. coin piano companies. From 1907 through 1919, QRS went on to supply rolls for all the major coin piano makers in Chicago. The tunes were sometimes altered so the arrangements would be somewhat different from the source 65 or 88-note piano roll version, but still had the QRS arranging style, perforating, and paper.

The J.P. Seeburg Piano Company

For two years, J.P. Seeburg bought all of the Cremona coin pianos from Marquette and operated them on location in Chicago. This became a very lucrative enterprise. Then in 1909, he began manufacturing his own Seeburg brand coin pianos with mechanisms designed by his shop foremen, Oscar Nelson and Peter Wiggen. Within a few years, Seeburg offered five popular styles of coin pianos, the styles A, B, C, E, and F (along with a short-lived Style D).

QRS continued to make Cremona A rolls for Marquette, but also started a new series of Seeburg S rolls (the same as A rolls) beginning with #1 in 1912. The oldest S roll known to the author is #S-8 in the collection of Matt Jaro. It includes “Be My Baby Bumblebee”, “Oh! You Circus Day”, and “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam’”, all published in 1912.

The QRS Marking Piano

QRS marking piano, introduced in 1912 to record hand-played arrangements.

From the beginning in 1900 until 1912, musicians at QRS used drawing boards like the other companies had. In 1912, Melville and Ernest Clark perfected their version of a marking piano, which marked lines on a blank roll as a pianist played in real time. This was the same type of device used by Welte, Duo-Art and Ampico for capturing the performances of pianists, but the QRS marking piano didn’t record dynamics.

The pencil masters from the marking piano were extensively edited, hand-punched, and then mass-produced for home player pianos on multiple-copy duplicating roll perforators. Once the marking piano was perfected, QRS began hiring fine pianists to play their popular rolls. The backbone of the artist roster over the years included Victor Arden, Phil Ohman, Zez Confrey, Max Kortlander, Lee S. Roberts, Pete Wendling, James P. Johnson, and J. Russell Robinson. Many of their edited performances were eventually adapted for QRS coin piano and orchestrion rolls. Most of them also played for various brands of 78 rpm records. Some of these audio recordings may be heard on YouTube, where the listener may compare their live performances to their piano roll arrangements.

Chicago Orchestrion Rolls

Seeburg continued to expand its line of coin pianos, introducing the Style G orchestrion in 1912 and the keyboardless Style KT in 1913. These played style SS (G) rolls, with the same dimensions as A rolls (11¼” wide, 65 holes spaced 6 per inch), but with a shorter note scale to make room for control perforations for two extra instruments, expression, and percussion. The larger Seeburg H followed in 1913, playing style SSS (H) rolls. These were 15¼” wide with 88 holes spaced 6 per inch, allowing for a larger note scale, three extra instruments and more percussion.

Marquette followed suit in 1913 with the Cremona Style J orchestrion, which played style M rolls (11¼” wide with 88 holes spaced 9 per inch).

In 1914, Operators Piano Company introduced the Coinola Style X and several other orchestrions, which played style O rolls (11¼” wide with 88 holes spaced 9 per inch).

As each new orchestrion was introduced, QRS made the rolls, naming each roll style with the initial of the company that used it: S, SS, and SSS for Seeburg (soon changed to A, G, and H respectively), M for Marquette, and O for Operators Coinola orchestrions. Later, QRS made L rolls for Lyon & Healy; NW rolls for a Nelson-Wiggen instrument, etc. The first rolls had only a rubber stamp with the style letter and roll number at the beginning (for example, S-8, O-93, M-110, etc.). Many labels and tune cards for early A rolls included only the roll number, while orchestrion rolls included only the style letter and roll number. Later, each piano company also included its name. QRS made all of these rolls, but none ever had a QRS label.

Increasing Popularity of QRS Coin-Operated Music Rolls

Seeing the success of Marquette’s Cremona and J.P. Seeburg’s A-roll pianos, numerous other piano makers joined the bandwagon starting around 1911 to 1913. The September 10, 1914 issue of The Presto magazine ran a press release to the trade entitled “Ernest Clark and the QRS.” It includes a rare mention of the automatic rolls being made by QRS:

Later A-roll bulletins and catalogs listed nearly 50 different brands of coin pianos using the standardized A roll. Most of these smaller makers discontinued production by 1917 when the U.S. entered World War I, but many of their pianos remained in use for the following decade. Adding these smaller brands to the combined total of Seeburg, Cremona, Coinola, and later, Nelson-Wiggen and Western Electric A-roll pianos provided a potential market of many thousands of customers for A rolls.

The same September 1914 press release in The Presto also discussed the square holes that were unique to 9 per inch QRS rolls:

QRS orchestrion rolls with 9 per inch hole spacing were also made on perforators with the unique QRS square punches. This telltale sign, plus similar music arrangements on all A, G, H, and M rolls, and all O rolls from 1914 through about 1918, make it easy to recognize an original roll made by the QRS coin-operated roll division.

It seems that each company — Seeburg, Marquette, and Operators — had its own representative who ordered the tune lineup for each 10-tune roll. Seeburg A, G and H rolls include many of the same titles, but O and M rolls each have their own repertoire, with some overlap of the most popular tunes.

Seeburg’s new “Automatic Music Roll Company” Brand

Seeburg A rolls made by QRS continued to have the J.P. Seeburg Piano Co. name on the labels and tune cards through roll A-289 in late 1915. With the beginning of 1916 and roll A-290, Seeburg used the brand name “Automatic Music Roll Co.” on all of its rolls. The first Automatic labels resembled the layout of prior Seeburg labels, with the Erie St. factory address. When Seeburg opened its new factory on Dayton St., new labels were designed with a larger Automatic logo that included 1510 Dayton St. as the address.

Summary Comparison Table:

A Comparison of QRS Rolls for Home and Commercial Use
Size	Apollo Rolls	Commerical Rolls
11¼” 6 per inch	65-note player piano	A and G
11¼” 9 per inch	88-note player piano Art Apollo QRS Red X	Cremona M Coinola O, C Expression Seeburg XP
15¼” 6 per inch	Apollo Concert Grand (88-note player piano)	Seeburg H and MSR Berry-Wood orchestrion
15¼” 9 per inch	Solo Apollo w/ 2 stacks and automatic expression	Cremona Solo S (photoplayer) Express Twin Tracker Nelson-Wiggen Selector Duplex

P.M. Keast’s Memories

Following Harvey Roehl’s recommendation, I corresponded with Mr. Keast several times in 1969 and 1970. A condensation of that correspondence is included in Bowers’ Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments. In late December 1970, Dave Junchen, Dave Ramey, Tom Sprague and I had an extensive three-hour interview with Keast, a synopsis of which is included in Treasures of Mechanical Music (Reblitz and Bowers, 1981). Since the correspondence and interview contain both unique and overlapping information, I’ll integrate them for this article. Keast’s years at QRS are included here, and his time at Clark and Capitol will follow in Part Two (located further down this page).

Melville Clark’s Death

When Melville Clark died in November 1918, major changes soon happened to his piano company and QRS:

1. Tom Pletcher bought QRS and moved it from DeKalb back to Chicago.
2. Wurlitzer acquired the Melville Clark piano factory in DeKalb.
3. Ernest G. Clark incorporated the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., transferred his ownership of the QRS Coin-Operated Roll Division assets to the new company and moved the coin-op division from Chicago back to DeKalb.

These business moves set in motion a chain of events that would transform the coin-operated music roll scene in Chicago in important ways. The coming changes might never have happened had Melville Clark lived to see the end of the coin piano business about ten years later. That part of the story will be told below in Part Two, along with a timeline of important events from 1900 to 1941 covering both parts of the article.

---

Part Two—The Clark Orchestra Roll Company, Columbia, and Capitol

Melville Clark’s Death

Part One of this article concluded with the passing of Melville Clark on November 5, 1918, an event that would dramatically change the Chicago coin-operated music roll business. His death notice in the November 7 issue of The Presto said “He had been in failing health for some time and, while his death came as a shock to his friends, his close associates in business had anticipated the end.”

About a month earlier, the October 3 issue of The Presto ran an article announcing that Thomas M. Pletcher, former vice president and sales manager, had purchased controlling interest in the Melville Clark Piano Co. “which includes, of course, the QRS Company.” Pletcher had worked his way through the ranks of the company since his start as a sales traveler in 1903, until he was elected vice president and sales manager in 1912. The announcement of Pletcher’s buyout gave no hint of Clark’s declining health, but rather predicted a rosy future with Clark continuing to offer his guidance to the new majority owner. The article continued:

Unfortunately, this glowing article proved to be nothing more than favorable publicity for Pletcher’s takeover, as Melville’s “genius, judgment and past experience” would benefit his two great industries for only another month before he died. Upon his death, Melville’s younger brother Ernest G. was appointed superintendent of both plants while Pletcher embarked on a path that would eventually bring about three new companies in place of the old one: the QRS company owned by Pletcher, which would mainly produce 88-note player piano rolls; the Apollo Piano Co., sold to an outside interest, which would take over the Melville Clark piano factory; and the Clark Orchestra Roll Co. owned by Ernest G. Clark, which would replace the coin-operated music roll division of the original QRS company.

Pletcher’s New QRS Company

Pletcher’s new focus on the 88-note piano roll business was evident when an article appeared in the April 17, 1919 issue of The Presto announcing that QRS had leased seven acres at the northwest corner of 48th Place and Kedzie Ave. in Chicago. This would be the location of a new 150,000 square foot factory solely for the production of piano rolls, at a projected cost of $500,000. Pletcher’s goal was to make QRS the dominant piano roll maker in the country. This could only occur if dealers and potential customers saw QRS as being independent, not connected with any specific brand of player piano. Pletcher stated:

“We retain absolutely no interest in the Apollo business, or in the manufacture of pianos and player-pianos of any style, make, or name. From now on we will be manufacturers of QRS rolls exclusively. We decided upon this move because we realized the importance of having no affiliations with any player manufacturing business if we are to serve all dealers alike without prejudice or partiality.

“We will give up possession of our De Kalb, Ill., factory building; land, machinery, etc., on September 1, 1919, at which time we hope to have the entire QRS plant installed in our new factory in Chicago, where we will be in position to give the dealers service and unqualified support.

“We realized the importance of running our roll business on a basis of no favors for anyone and we felt that we could do this only by disposing of our entire affiliation with the player-piano business. We are now prepared to carry on a propaganda in the national magazines for the sale of player-pianos. No QRS roll ad will appear without a suggestion to the public to buy player-pianos.”

Pletcher was already expanding the QRS business when he negotiated with Wurlitzer to buy that firm’s Rolla Artis player piano roll business, announced in the July 13, 1918 Music Trade Review. The $100,000 deal included QRS acquiring all player piano roll masters, inventory, machinery and materials, to be shipped to the DeKalb factory, and Wurlitzer agreeing to purchase two million QRS rolls over the following five years. It did not include Wurlitzer’s coin piano, orchestrion or band organ rolls or equipment, although Wurlitzer began mixing its own drawing board arrangements with those based on QRS rolls for its 65-Note Automatic Player Piano rolls in the early 1920s.

The Apollo Piano Company

Within a few months of the announcement of the new QRS factory in Chicago, the August 2, 1919 issue of The Music Trades made it known that Pletcher had sold the Melville Clark Piano Co.’s factory, grounds, machinery, patterns, patents, etc. in DeKalb to a group of interests using the name Apollo Piano Company.

Pletcher anticipated a more prosperous ongoing business in piano rolls than in the highly competitive and much more complex industry of piano and player piano manufacturing. It made sense to him to sell off the piano company to reinvest in several new QRS factories. This was later confirmed in an article in the March 1933 Piano Trade Magazine, which said “The player roll division was large and profitable; the piano manufacturing business small and unprofitable. So Mr. Pletcher sold the piano business and plant and established QRS factories at Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Canada.”

Less than two months later, the Sept. 25 issue of The Presto revealed the officers of the new company: Edwin S. Rauworth, president; E.H. Uhl, vice-president; Farny R. Wurlitzer, secretary; and John Devine, treasurer and assistant secretary. These officers, with Howard E. Wurlitzer, would constitute the board of directors. The secret was out — the giant Wurlitzer company had acquired the Melville Clark Piano Co. September 1, 1919 marked the date not only when QRS would be fully moved into the new Chicago factory, but also when Wurlitzer would take over the piano factory in DeKalb.

The Clark Orchestra Roll Company

Soon after Pletcher moved the QRS roll business from DeKalb to the new factory in Chicago, Ernest Clark acquired the assets of the former coin-operated roll division. On January 23, 1920, he incorporated the new Clark Orchestra Roll Co., initially with its principal office in the new QRS factory. The January 22, 1920, issue of The Presto included this:

A copy of the Clark Orchestra Roll Company corporate records amazingly turned up in an Antique Trader classified ad in the early 1980s. These were acquired by Dick Howe, who made copies for the author before donating his large collection of literature to the archives at University of Maryland (recently transferred to Stanford University), and the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota (previously known as the Shrine to Music). Combined with the memories of P.M. Keast cited throughout this article, these records help to describe details of the business that otherwise would have remained unknown.

Property Transferred from QRS to Clark Orchestra Roll Co.

The new Clark Orchestra Roll Company issued 50,000 shares of common stock, allocated to Ernest Clark (49,800 shares), Bayard Clark (100 shares), and Alexander Bell (100 shares). The corporate records include the following list of equipment acquired by the new firm, valued at $45,000. [Author’s comments in brackets.]

Pianos
1–Piano – with recording action, no number.
1–Piano – double tracker, player action (#8705).
1–Piano – plain 88-note.
1–Piano – Electric Automatic (New) #18977.
1–Piano – with motor #7091.
1–Piano – Player action, Solo B.
1–Piano – with recording action (same as first item).

Player Cabinets [These are the automatic instruments used for playing finished rolls.].
All old and in need of repairs and cleaning.
One without motor.

Machines
1–Solo and 88-note perforator – 134-punch head.
1–Solo only perforator – 134-punch head.
2–88-note perforators with wide dies [6 per inch].
2–88-note perforators with narrow dies [9 per inch].
2–65-note perforators [6 per inch].
1–Master Reproducer (Solo).
1–Master Hand Punch.
1–Master Hand Punch (88-note).
1–Transfer Machine (Double Tracker) and all attachments.
1–Master paper records (used in reproduction work for Masters only) – and all attachments.
4–Arranging tables and boards.
7–Cutting Blocks (Maple).
10–Tables.
2–Benches.
7–Chairs.
5–Racks.
1–Lamp – Portable (Arranging).
2–Lamps – on Master Punch Machines.
1–Skeleton Apollo Action.
1–Correcting Hand Punch (Square).
1–Correcting Hand Punch (Round).
2–Tables – 60-foot lengths.
3–Tables – stock.
1–Large Cabinet.
3–Trimmers.
3–Motors and Pumps.
3–Spooling Machines.
1–Rack and all Trays for specials.
Rubber Stamps, weights, blades, and other articles that pertain to production of special rolls.

Masters
All special masters arranged for Electric Player Organs, known as originals. Also all masters belonging to Seeburg, Marquette, Symphony, Engelhardt, Doll, or others not mentioned.

Library of Music
Complete file of popular music for electrics, which personal property we hereby appraise at the contract price and fair market value of $25,000.

The good will and going business, in connection with the music rolls produced by said machinery, built up and heretofore owned by Ernest G. Clark, we hereby appraise at a fair market value of $20,000, which property and good will and going business has been sold, assigned and transferred by said Ernest G. Clark to said Clark Orchestra Roll Company at a price of $45,000.”

P.M. Keast described some of the pianos and machines listed above when he discussed how coin-operated rolls were made at QRS, related in Part One of this article. A summary of the perforators includes two 6 per inch 15¼” wide (88-hole); two 9 per inch 15¼” wide (134-hole); two 6 per inch 11¼” wide (65-hole); two 9 per inch 11¼” wide (88-hole), plus the master and transcribing machines that he used, for a total of eight duplicating perforators plus the hand-operated master roll punches. Considering the number of Clark, Automatic, Cremona and other brands of A, G, and 4X rolls that were made over the next 20 years, it’s very likely that additional 6 per inch 11¼” wide perforators were added as production increased.

It’s important to note that no mention was made of Clark retaining the QRS music roll masters for the Operators Piano Co. (Coinola). This will be discussed later in this article.

Clark Orchestra Roll Co. Begins Production

Clark immediately began making A, O, and other styles of rolls under its own name, but also continued to make Automatic A, G, H, XP and other styles for Seeburg; Cremona A and M rolls for Marquette; and various rolls for other piano makers.

Seeburg’s Automatic Music Roll Co. never made rolls but continued to buy them from Clark. Clark’s first new O rolls were numbered from #100 through about #150. This caused confusion with earlier O rolls made by QRS, so Clark started over with #2000.

The September 4, 1920 issue of The Presto included a large display ad that read in part “Clark Orchestra Rolls are used on almost every roll-controlled piano and organ of importance. Discriminating manufacturers, perceiving the necessity of a correct music roll to the full demonstration of their instruments, have come to us for their music. Clark Orchestra Rolls are made expressly for the manufacturers listed below. Order music direct from your player-builder.” It then listed some of its wholesale customers:

Automatic Piano Company, Memphis, Tenn.
Jacob Doll & Sons, Inc., New York City – Electrova.
Engelhardt Piano Company, St. Johnsville, NY – Engelhardt; Banjo-Orchestra.
Magna-Chordia, Inc., New York City – Magna Chordia (Organ).
The Marquette Piano Company, Chicago, Illinois – Cremona.
J.P. Seeburg Piano Company, Chicago, Illinois – Seeburg; Seeburg-Smith Unit Organ.
Standard Player Piano Company, Oregon, Illinois – Standard.
Symphony Piano Company, Covington, Kentucky - Symphony.

At first, about half of the arrangements were done by the in-house arranging staff under the direction of P.M. Keast, but others were adapted from QRS masters. Part of the agreement when Pletcher bought the 88-note QRS roll business was that QRS would supply Ernest Clark with a master of any roll he wanted for making coin piano rolls. By 1924, almost all Clark rolls were adapted from QRS masters. When the same tune appeared on an Automatic and Clark roll of the same type, the same source arrangement was used as the basis.

In 1922, Oscar Nelson and Peter Wiggen left the J.P. Seeburg Piano Company and formed the Nelson-Wiggen Piano Co. One of their new models was the 4X with xylophone. Clark introduced a new line of 4X rolls based on the same piano arrangements as Automatic G rolls, but with special xylophone parts. By the late 1920s, Clark used the same xylophone arrangements for Automatic G and Clark 4X rolls as a cost-cutting measure. By that time, almost all Seeburg G-roll machines being sold were the KT and KT Special with xylophone rather than pipes.

P.M. Keast’s Years at Clark: 1920-1924

When Pletcher moved QRS from DeKalb to the new factory in Chicago, Keast temporarily moved to Chicago but maintained his home in DeKalb. When Ernest Clark then bought the coin-operated division and moved it back to DeKalb, Keast moved back too and became the chief arranger of coin-operated rolls. He remembered the following key personnel at Clark in the early 1920s: Ernest G. Clark (owner and manager); P.M. Keast (chief arranger of automatic rolls); P.H. Keast (brother, arranger of automatic rolls); Harry Hamilton (arranger of automatic rolls; drummer and drum parts); Marion Wright (arranger of organ rolls), Phil Oberg (master puncher), Violet Glass (master cutter), and Myrtle Beyer (master cutter).

Clark Orchestra Roll Co. building at 128 S. Second St., DeKalb, Illinois, photographed by the author in 1992, was still standing as of 2015.

Several of these people came with Keast from the QRS coin-operated division. Harry Hamilton had worked for QRS, orchestrating coin-operated rolls until he was drafted into World War I in late 1917. Keast’s first job at QRS had been to take over Hamilton’s arranging work. Now Hamilton was back from the war and they were once again working together at Clark.

Keast reminisced: “Clark’s building was a low two-story frame structure right next to the railroad tracks. The old Lincoln Highway [U.S. Route 30] is the main street of DeKalb. Just a block south of that is the Northwestern Railroad, running up at an angle. Clark was located in there.“When Ernie Clark bought the coin-operated part of the business he had the stipulation that he could continue using the QRS player piano roll masters. The rolls that you couldn’t find on QRS were arranged by us on the drawing board, during the time that I had charge of the arranging department. I always liked the playing of the QRS artists better than our own original drawing board work, but I honestly thought that some of the drawing board work was better adapted to coin-operated machines, because the 88-note word rolls had to be revised extensively and sometimes didn’t work so well. When the rolls were arranged specifically for the coin-operated instruments to begin with, I could stay within the range from the start. Our drawing board arrangements wouldn’t be as complicated as four-hand work because there wasn’t so much of that stuff in the high treble. That sounds great on the word rolls, but a lot of it is lost on coin-operated rolls. It was easier to arrange down the two-hand rolls such as those played by Zez Confrey or the ones Kortlander played by himself.

“Everything at Clark was on the single punch basis, as it had been at QRS, with the drawing board ratchet, the rhythm scales, and the punching machine all based on that single punch. The master rolls were practically the same length as the production rolls.

“Regarding the conversion of 88-note piano rolls into the 65-note scale for mechanical instruments, it is difficult to draw a word picture of the procedures. Some were entirely rearranged on what was called ‘master paper,’ a fairly stiff but pliable paper, by hand from the music — marches and waltzes, for instance, or from the hand played roll itself, keeping in mind the limitations of the automatic instrument such as power, the 65-note scale, etc.

“We also used a duplicating machine for some rolls, particularly those not in strict rhythm, such as ‘Nola’ by Felix Arndt. This method required rearranging and editing to meet the limitations of the automatic instrument such as power, the 65-note scale, etc.

“I thought I could duplicate the arranging of the various artists at the arranging board, and some of the work I did at the drawing board was patterned after theirs. They used certain combinations or procedures, such as a rolling melody or countermelody, which they usually used in four-hand arrangements. Kortlander played the top part and Roberts played the bottom; Arden played the low part and Ohman played the high part. Each had his own ideas, and if you worked on those for a few years you got so you could do them yourself. When you work on something like that day after day, if you don’t absorb some of it, you’re screening it all out some way or another.

“I suppose I could still do it to an extent. I doubt if I could arrange on a piece of blank roll paper, but if you gave me the master paper, the drawing board with the ratchets and the scales, I could make a roll. Whether or not I would get the correct combinations of notes, I don’t know. That was their big secret; they would each get their own effects with certain combinations of notes, combined with certain rhythmic ideas.

“When I was working at Clark, I used to come into Seeburg once a month and meet Fred A. Kosecki for a music selection conference. He had charge of that program. We would make up the content of the rolls, and then I’d go back and we’d work them out. I don’t remember any instance of a publisher bringing us sheet music like they bring it to a band leader to have a new song plugged. We never put anything on the rolls that wasn’t already reasonably popular. Ten songs per roll was a limited number, and when Mr. Kosecki and I made up the list we chose the ten that we thought were the most popular and would ‘sell’ on a coin-operated piano. That’s the name of the game, I guess.” [Fred Kosecki began working for J.P. Seeburg in 1907, riding a motorcycle to collect nickels from Seeburg’s route of Cremona coin pianos, and then advancing through various positions. He was credit manager of the J.P. Seeburg Corp. and had the most years of service of any employee when he died in 1949. – AR]

“About the same time that I left, some of the other boys left too. Harry Hamilton resigned to become the city clerk [in May 1931, per a press release – AR]. Marion Wright left, but I don’t know when. He was a very good piano player and played professionally. My brother went into the food business; he ran an A&P store. He is living [at the time of the interview] in Gibson City, Illinois. As far as I know, there was no political reason for anyone leaving. I haven’t any idea where the rest of the people are. At QRS, Phillips and Lauer were both older than I was. Zig Swanson was about four years older than I was, and he is the last one I knew of; he was living in DeKalb, but I’m 82, so if he’s alive, he’d be about 86.” [End of Keast’s memories of working at Clark. – AR]

Steps in Making a Clark Orchestra Roll

In the early 1920s, Clark published a house organ called The Coin Slot and a series of brochures showing some of the steps involved in producing coin-operated piano rolls. The photographs of steps 1 through 5 are from those publications, and they can be accessed by clicking here or on the thumbnail image at right. The original sales hyperbole from the brochures has been replaced with brief descriptions of what each person is doing.

For step 6, the important last step in roll production, the following trade article from the July 1930 issue of The Presto-Times, explains this necessary step in fascinating detail. Harry Hamilton is pictured auditioning a finished H or MSR roll on a Seeburg Style R photoplayer to check for mistakes. This is the same instrument that P.M Keast referred to in his description of the QRS coin-operated roll division in Part 1 of this article, where he called it a “big organ,” used primarily by Roy Rodocker:

Business Booms During the Late 1920s

Ernest Clark maintained a separation between retail customers and commercial ones such as Seeburg and Marquette. On April 10, 1925, he wrote to a private customer “Your card received with order for A rolls for which we wish to thank you. Shipment has been forwarded to you. Answering the question in regard to G rolls, we make the G rolls, but only for the Automatic Music Roll Company, 1510 Dayton Street, Chicago. Kindly write them, and they will take care of your needs on the G roll.”

During Clark’s busiest years, the corporate records include the requisite boilerplate notices of annual directors’ and shareholders’ meetings, with only a few special meetings. One such meeting was held in March, 1925, to dispose of the printing department, known as Clark Letter Service, to Ernest Clark’s son Bayard for $100 due immediately and a $6150 mortgage to be paid $500 annually with an interest rate of 6%.

1929 - The End of Cremona and Seeburg “Automatic” Brand Rolls

In the February 9, 1929 Music Trade Review, Clark announced that it would service all prior customers of the Cremona Service Co., the last vestige of the Marquette Piano Co. Clark said it would continue to list Style M orchestrion rolls in its bulletins, and it would make Solo S rolls for Cremona photoplayers by special order. The author has never seen a Cremona M roll or Solo S roll with a Clark label, however.

In January 1930, Clark announced that it would take over servicing of all music rolls for Seeburg automatic pianos formerly handled by the Automatic Music Roll Co. of Chicago, effective February 1, 1930. Clark lost Seeburg as a wholesale customer but gained Seeburg’s list of distributors and retail customers. Style G and H rolls were discontinued, but Clark continued to make its own brand of A and 4X rolls.

Diminishing Sales in the 1930s

Ernest G. Clark’s portrait from the January 1930 issue of The Presto.

Coin piano, orchestrion, and mortuary organ production by the coin piano makers ended in 1929-1930, but many thousands of instruments were still in public use. Demand for rolls continued but decreased steadily during the next 10 years as coin-operated phonographs gradually gained in popularity. Clark’s corporate records tell the story of the increasing challenges endured by the company during that difficult decade, paraphrased here:

Nov. 4 1930: The directors voted to negotiate a loan of $4K from DeKalb Trust and Savings Bank, who held a first mortgage for $4,500 on the company’s factory building. The new $4000 was to be secured by a second mortgage to run for the period remaining on the first mortgage, both maturing at the same time.

Feb. 24, 1931: The president claimed the company was not much worse off than other businesses, and suggested that the upper floor should be cleaned out as much as possible, so it could be rented to a light manufacturing enterprise.

The once-mighty player piano roll business was also in distress at this time. Thomas Pletcher’s grand QRS enterprise had tried diversifying in an attempt to build sales under the new name QRS-DeVry Corp. Some of the new products included roll-playing musical toys, radio tubes, still cameras, movie cameras and projectors, but the firm and Pletcher went bankrupt as a consequence of the stock market crash.

Long-time employee Max Kortlander then contracted to buy the music roll business from QRS-DeVry, with the sales agreement dated May 12, 1931. He renamed his business Imperial Industrial Company, with the New York and Chicago factories continuing to produce rolls. The new name would enable him to engage in other business activity if the player piano roll business didn’t survive, but it did. Ernest Clark maintained his agreement to continue using QRS player piano roll masters as the basis for Styles A and 4X rolls.

Dec. 10, 1931: Clark Orchestra Rolls took out a new first mortgage for $8,500 to refinance obligations now due to the bank. They had evidently only been paying interest on the previous debt.

Feb. 9, 1932: The president stated that they were holding on with hopes that a turn would make changes for the better, as most other plants were doing. Everything in the way of expense had been reduced to a minimum with only one aim in view — to hold the trade that had been theirs for so long a time through good will. The upper floor remained vacant.

Feb. 16, 1933: Clark endured severe losses during the year, but hopes for better conditions under the new industrial economics program were expressed. The secretary would write to the Illinois State Secretary for advice on the proper procedure to reduce capital stock from $100,000 (1000 shares at $100) to $25,800 (258 shares @ $100).

Feb. 16, 1933: The question of disposing of the music cutting machines and equipment for manufacturing music rolls was considered, and a fair price for the sale was to be ascertained. The upper floor of the factory was still unoccupied.

As a cost-cutting measure, Clark stopped printing red borders on roll and box labels around the same time. Returning to the Clark Orchestra Roll Co. corporate records:

July 17, 1933: The upper floor with heat would be leased to the Robbins & Staufert Co., makers of fine leather goods, for 2 years at a rental of $125 per month. The board accepted the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce’s offer to pay the first two month’s rent at $100 a month and to pay for whitewashing the ceiling and walls of the space rented to them, as a contribution to the new firm to help offset moving expenses from Chicago.

1934 through 1937: Each year in this period a comment was made about hoping for business to improve soon.

Feb. 23, 1938: Robbins & Staufert moved back to Chicago. The loss of monthly rent was keenly felt. It had been an important factor in helping to meet some of the overhead expense of the building.

The president also explained the roll situation as being a hard question to answer. Inquiries were coming in “very frequently,” asking where the rolls for certain pianos could be purchased, and as Clark was the only remaining company that pioneered the rolls in the early days, it continued to hold on and give service to the thousands of piano owners who otherwise could get no rolls at all.

The management did not think it would be smart to junk the roll-making equipment to make room for other tenants because they wanted to hang on as the only makers of coin piano rolls with thousands of past customers.

Feb. 23, 1938: A 5-year lease was drawn up for B.H. Clark Co., Inc., owned by Ernest’s son Bayard, which would engage in the printing of commercial advertising. It would occupy the west half of the first floor, comprising 3611 square feet, for $60 per month. It is unknown if any perforating equipment was put into storage or scrapped to make room for the print shop.

Nov. 1, 1938: Robbins & Staufert, previous occupants of the 2nd floor, expressed a desire to move back in for $100 per month, including heat and water.

Feb. 23, 1939: The president reported that further production beyond the current stock of music roll paper and other supplies was very questionable. He proposed issuing a list of current rolls in stock for sale at reduced prices to close out as many as possible. Pace Manufacturing (maker of the roll-operated Pace’s Races horserace gambling machine) had ordered several thousand small rolls, which was called “a profitable part of our business that has helped to pay bills as they came due,” Other rolls were still occasionally sold to owners of calliopes used in advertising and amusement enterprises.

June 1939: Robbins and Staufert moved out again.

The End of Clark Orchestra Roll Company

These last entries in the corporate minutes describe events leading to the end of the Clark business (in synopsis form here):

Feb. 23, 1940: The mortgage of $8000 came due and the bank decided to cancel it without prior notice and without offering to extend it. This was only made known after Clark paid the interest payment that was due. The loss of Robbins and Staufert incurred a loss of $160 in rent, making it harder to meet operating expenses. The president extended a personal loan to the company to pay overdue interest and taxes. He also noted that “The roll business is not very thrifty, but our machines will not make any other style of products, so it was considered best to continue as one alone and create such orders as might be acceptable from the field, through the simple program of issuing a few new numbers, occasionally, to tempt the piano owners to send in orders.

Jan. 21, 1941: The DeKalb Trust and Savings bank foreclosed against the company. It was moved that the real estate and building be conveyed to the bank by quitclaim deed. Clark was given free rent, heat, and insurance for 18 months, with options to repurchase the real estate and premises within that time, and to sublet parts of the building with any rents received to apply to the debt. Clark was free to sell any or all of its personal property during 18 months; at the end of 18 months it would remove such property.

Ernest G. Clark family crypt, courtesy of Don Rand.

Clark issued its last new rolls in 1940: A-1522 and 4X-415. According to Dave Junchen, Roesler-Hunholz of Milwaukee expressed interest in the perforators and other equipment that had served QRS and then Clark so well for nearly 40 years, but never took delivery and everything was scrapped. (Elmer Hunholz recounted his interesting lifetime career in automatic music in the AMICA Bulletin, Vol. 14, #10, Dec. 1977, available to members in AMICA’s online archive.)

It is unknown how long Ernest’s son Bayard continued operating his print shop in the same building. It was ironic that he made a career in printing — the same industry that had initially set the standards for the earliest piano roll makers.

Dave Junchen told the author in the 1960s that a collector once observed two pianos in the second story of the Clark building long after the company and its people were gone. Details were vague but hinted at a pair of Nelson-Wiggen instruments, one being a gutted keyboard-style piano and the other a derelict keyboardless orchestrion like a 4X. If anyone knows what happened to these pianos, it would make an interesting footnote to this article!

Don Rand, collector and manufacturer of coin piano and orchestrion rolls, took the picture of the Ernest G. Clark family crypt on a trip through DeKalb many years ago. The markers include Ernest G. Clark (1866-1945), his wife Bertha H. Clark (1870-1954), and their son Bayard H. Clark (1893-1953).

Columbia and Capitol Coin Piano Rolls

The Operators Piano Company

Portrait of the young Louis M. Severson, frequently used in Operators press releases.

Louis M. Severson opened an automatic piano repair shop in 1904 and founded the Operators Piano Company in 1909. Operators’ first new product was the Victor Coin A-roll piano, but the brand name was soon changed to Coinola. In 1914 he added a series of orchestrions playing the new Operators O roll, 11¼” wide with 9 per inch hole spacing. QRS made O rolls for Operators from 1914 until about 1920. Like other coin piano and orchestrion rolls made by QRS, the O rolls had square perforations, and the earliest labels included the roll number and style letter but no brand name.

In January 1919, two months after Melville Clark’s death, Severson decided to add his own music roll-making division to the Operators Piano Co. He purchased all of the perforators and masters for making 6 per inch rolls from Chicago’s United States Music Co., and similar items from the defunct Kibbey Company. Starting with this equipment, he established the Columbia Music Roll division of Operators Piano Co. and began making A rolls in the same year. (The last United States Music Co. A roll in Matt Jaro’s extensive collection was made in 1918 and the first Columbia A roll dates from early 1919.)

During the first part of 1919, Operators continued to order O rolls from QRS, but used labels with the new Columbia brand name. These used a continuation of the earlier QRS O roll numbering series. Ernest Clark’s 1920 acquisition of the QRS coin operated roll making equipment had included master rolls for Seeburg, Marquette, and others, but not Operators. Instead, Severson took possession of the QRS O-roll masters. By late 1919 or early 1920, Operators had its own 9 per inch perforators running, and began making Columbia O rolls with round perforations.

During the 1919 transition period there is an overlap between Columbia O rolls made by QRS with square holes and those made by Operators with round holes. The last QRS-made O roll in the author’s collection is O-418 with tunes from 1919, a Columbia label, and square holes. Some of the most popular O rolls from previous years that were originally supplied by QRS were reissued by Columbia, now with round holes, confusing the exact date that QRS was dropped as a supplier, but it was likely before the beginning of 1920. With the Columbia Music Roll Co. now capable of making A, O, and OS rolls (the latter for the popular Reproduco organs), Operators no longer needed outside roll suppliers.

Who was managing the new Columbia roll division at Operators after Ernest Clark and P.M. Keast moved back to DeKalb? It was none other than Roy V. Rodocker, previously the manager of QRS’s coin operated division. Under his capable and experienced supervision, Columbia installed a marking piano so the new company could record live pianists as QRS did. A press release in the October 16, 1920 Music Trade Indicator mentioned that Columbia, “organized some time ago,” just issued its first printed list of home player piano rolls bearing a date of November, 1920. About the same time, Columbia also began manufacturing Supertone brand player piano rolls for Sears, Roebuck & Co.

In late 1924, the Columbia Music Roll Co. considered introducing a new line of 78 rpm records. Out of deference to the Columbia Graphophone Co., which made records for over 20 years, Operators changed the name of its music roll division to Capitol Roll and Record Co. The new name was given to coin piano and orchestrion rolls as well as player piano rolls.

Rodocker hired a new roster of fine popular and blues pianists, mostly from the Chicago area, including Jimmy Blythe, Clarence Johnson, John Honnert, Clarence Jones, and Pearl White. These pianists played 88-note roll arrangements on Operators’ marking piano, and the arranging staff converted them to coin piano and orchestrion rolls as they previously had done at QRS. Only a few of these pianists had recorded for QRS, so they brought a refreshing new style to player piano and coin piano rolls alike. John Honnert and Pearl White were theatre organists, and their arrangements sounded especially good when edited for Coinola O and Seeburg G orchestrion rolls. (Operators never made an orchestrion that played G rolls, but Columbia/Capitol made excellent G rolls for the secondary market.) Unfortunately, they never made Seeburg H or Cremona M rolls.

The Operators Piano Co. and the Columbia/Capitol music roll division thrived until 1929. Piano production ceased around 1930. The last rolls were made in 1934, adapted once again from QRS 88-note masters. Eventually the Capitol roll making equipment was scrapped.

P.M. Keast’s Years at Operators: 1924-1930

P.M. Keast had worked under Roy Rodocker at QRS during 1917-1920, and then managed Clark Orchestra Roll Co. In 1924 he moved back to Chicago and went to work for his old friend Rodocker, now at Operators. He recalled the following staff there: Roy Rodocker (arranger of player piano, coin-operated, and organ rolls; head of department); P.M. Keast (arranger of player piano and coin-operated rolls); H. Gulman (arranger of piano and coin-operated, died 1925); and one more person whose name he didn’t remember who did a little bit of everything.

According to historian and collector Glenn Grabinsky, H. Gulman might have been a name used by Ralph Goolman, who arranged rolls for Automatic Musical Co. in Binghamton, and then U.S. Music and Kibbey before coming to Columbia. His older brother was Frederick Goolman, an inventor who originally designed mechanisms for Peerless and then the Automatic Musical Co.

Keast recalled the following about his years at Operators:

Timeline of Significant Events

A Timeline of Significant Historical Events
Text in BOLDFACE = Technology and design; Text in regular type = Events and people.
Year	Month	Associated Historical Event
1899		QRS began making home player piano rolls.
1900		Melville Clark Piano Co. was established.
1905		J.P. Seeburg and associates established the Marquette Piano Co.
1907		Marquette introduced the first Cremona A-roll piano, using rolls made by QRS.
1907	Jul.	J.P. Seeburg Piano Co. was incorporated for the purpose of operating Cremonas.
1908		9 per inch roll spacing was standardized for home player pianos.
1909		J.P. Seeburg left Marquette, began making his own Seeburg coin pianos, using QRS rolls.
1909		L.M. Severson founded Operators Piano Co.
1912		QRS introduced a marking piano for recording live pianists.
1912		Seeburg introduced the Style G orchestrion, playing G rolls.
1913		Seeburg introduced the Style H orchestrion, playing H rolls.
1913		Marquette introduced the Style M orchestrion, playing M rolls.
1914		Operators introduced several styles of orchestrions, playing O rolls obtained from QRS.
1916		Seeburg established the Automatic Music Roll Co., with rolls supplied by QRS.
1917		P.M. Keast began working at the QRS coin-op division, managed by Roy Rodocker.
1918	Jul.	QRS bought the Rolla Artis player piano roll business from Wurlitzer.
1918	Oct.	Tom Pletcher took over Melville Clark Piano Co. and QRS.
1918	Nov.	Melville Clark died.
1919	Jan.	Operators bought 6 per inch perforators and masters from U.S. Music Co., and began making its own Columbia brand A rolls.
1919	Apr.	QRS announced plans for a new factory in Chicago.
1919	Aug.	Pletcher sold the Melville Clark Piano Co. to the Apollo Piano Co.
1919	Sept.	Wurlitzer was divulged as the buyer of Melville Clark Piano Co.
1919	Sept.	QRS moved into the large new factory in Chicago.
1919	Sept.	Wurlitzer moved into the DeKalb Melville Clark factory.
1919- 1920		Operators began making its own Columbia O rolls under the direction of Roy Rodocker, and stopped buying from QRS.
1920	Jan.	Ernest Clark bought the QRS coin-op roll division, moved it back to DeKalb, renamed it the Clark Orchestra Roll Co., marketed its own rolls to retail customers, Automatic rolls to Seeburg, Cremona rolls to Marquette, etc.
1920	Jan.	P.M. Keast became chief arranger at Clark Orchestra Roll Co. in DeKalb.
1924		P.M. Keast moved to Chicago to arrange for Columbia under Rodocker, Harry Hamilton became manager of Clark Orchestra Roll Co.
1924		Operators changed the name of its roll division from Columbia to Capitol.
1925	Mar.	Clark Orchestra Roll Co. sold its printing division to Bayard Clark, Ernest Clark’s son.
1929	Feb.	Clark Orchestra Roll Co. took over the A, M, and Solo S roll business of the Cremona Service Co.
1930	Jan.	Clark Orchestra Roll Co. took over the Automatic Music Roll Co. roll business of Seeburg and discontinued G and H rolls.
1930		P.M. Keast was terminated at Capitol.
1931	Feb.	Clark Orchestra Roll Co. vacated the 2nd story of its building to make it possible to rent it out.
1933	Mar.	Pletcher declared QRS bankrupt, Kortlander bought assets and renamed the business Imperial Industrial Co.
1934		Operators made its last new Capitol music rolls.
1938		Clark Orchestra Roll Co. vacated half of the first floor and leased it to Bayard Clark for his printing business. As roll styles G, H, M, Solo S, and others had been discontinued by 1930, it is likely that some of the instruments for testing them had also been sold to make room for possible tenants.
1940		Clark Orchestra Roll Co. issued its last new A roll and 4X roll.
1941	Jan.	Clark Orchestra Roll Co. underwent foreclosure.
1945		Ernest G. Clark died.

Terry Hathaway (webmaster of www.mechanicalmusicpress.com and www.reblitzrestorations.com) and Jere DeBacker (Melville Clark Apollo historian and specialist) have written a thorough history of the Melville Clark Piano Company and the many fascinating types of Apollo player and expression pianos, which includes a registry of Apollo automatic pianos known to exist, including design details, and an on-line survey form to simplify adding more pianos to the registry.

About the Author:

The author is the owner of Reblitz Restorations Inc., specializing in the restoration and servicing of automatic pianos and organs, and arranging music for them, for individuals, museums, and private collections since 1964.

Credits:

The information in this article was brought together from several major sources and many puzzle pieces gathered over several decades. Thanks to all who have shared their knowledge to help put the puzzle together and preserve this chapter of automatic music history: Bob Berkman, Bob and Ginny Billings, Q. David Bowers, Rick Crandall, Fred Dahlinger, Rob DeLand, Julian Dyer, Ed Gaida, Paul Gottschalk, Glenn Grabinsky, Terry Hathaway, Frank Himpsl, Richard Howe, Matt Jaro, Dana Johnson, Rusty King, Alan Lightcap, John Malone, David Ramey, Jr., Don Rand, Richard Schommer, Don Teach, and Glenn Thomas. Special thanks also go to the late Terry Borne, David Junchen, P.M. Keast, Mike Montgomery, Dave Ramey, Sr., Harvey Roehl, Tom Sprague, and Ed Sprankle.

Photographs:

Art Reblitz, Jere DeBacker, and Don Rand.

Copyright © 2003-2024 Mechanical Music Press, et al. - All rights reserved