(Photograph courtesy of Bob Gilson.)

Roll leader tab for National music roll #9584. The actual tab is the darker colored heavy paper strip at the top of the photograph. The end of the tab is meant to be inserted into a narrow cut slot in the middle of the take-up spool. This original National music roll is both yellowed and brittle with age, showing nearly a century of wear and tear. The all paper leader tab is as plainly simple as possible, unlike the fancier roll leader tabs commonly seen on player pianos, with a decorative cloth tab holding a shiny metal ring that is to be placed over a metal hook on the take-up spool. National music rolls were officially only intended to be installed once on a piano, then, in a week or so, they were to be pulled off the piano and returned to the factory, whereupon they were exchanged for new music with the old rolls systematically destroyed. This company policy kept the latest fresh new music on its thousands of National route pianos, and wave after wave of spent nickels flowing into into the company's coffers.

(Photograph courtesy of Bob Gilson.)

Title information on the front end roll leader for National music roll #9584. This music roll is titled: The Little Things in Life—Fox Trot. The title and roll number were printed on the left side of the roll leader in what looks like it might have been done using a typewritten mimeograph stencil. National music rolls are somewhat unique in that they essentially have identical leaders on both the front and tail end of the music roll. There is good reason for this. It has been learned that the service agent carried something akin to a suitcase, which probably contained a few often necessary spare parts, but more importantly the new music, all neatly rolled up and ready to be installed, along with a hand-cranked device that enabled the agent to quickly unspool old music rolls and then wind a new tune onto the emptied feed spool. As such, all of the music rolls stored in the service agent's case would have been rolled up with the tail end leader showing, and necessarily used to identify each of the music rolls. Then, once the feed spools had been rewound with new music, the front end music roll leaders would have been used to identify the rolls, and to thread them onto the correct take-up spool.

(Photograph courtesy of Bob Gilson.)

The front end roll leader for National music roll #9584 (The Little Things in Life—Fox Trot). Here the entire roll leader is shown laid out flat, from the tip of the roll leader all the way back to where the music roll perforations begin. Each music roll station on a National revolver magazine has its own take-up spool, and some type of spring-motor-powered rewind and braking system that insures that the music roll is never completely unwound from the take-up spool. The distance between the beginning of the music roll perforations and the leader tab is about 34 inches, enough excess paper to meet the requirements of the rewind mechanism. Whenever a music roll is loaded onto the average revolver magazine enough front end leader paper need be unfurled so that, after the feed spool is inserted and seated in the feed spool chucks, there is enough leader paper free to wrap around the take-up spool several times. Next insert the paper tab into the narrow slot in the take-up spool, and then rotate it just enough to take up any slack, making sure that the paper has wound snugly onto the take-up spool.

If the leader spacing is done correctly the music roll spools will be properly synchronized with the spring-motor-powered rewind and braking system. Through gearing connected to the feed spool, there is a spool-follower that roughly keeps track of how much paper has been spooled off the feed spool. Then, during the rewind process, this spool-follower backtracks its forward motion along a threaded rod until it reaches its stop position, whereupon it decelerates and stops the rewind phase—before all of the paper unwinds from the take-up spool.