(Photograph courtesy of Reblitz-Bowers Encyclopedia.)

Peerless Style RR Coin Piano. Introduced in 1910, This style RR was basically an evolved Style “D” piano, but with all of the player mechanisms located within the confines of the piano case. The style designation “RR” stood for “reroll” or “rewind type music roll,” each roll containing up to 20 tunes. The case was dark wax-finished oak or dull finished mahogany. The roll mechanism was mounted in the bottom right of the piano, with a small window by which the roll position could be monitored. The rewind type “RR” music rolls were essentially the same as the 7,000 Series endless style “D” music, with the same note scale, but using a different tracker bar hole spacing to prevent interchanging the two types of music rolls.

(Photograph courtesy of Reblitz-Bowers Encyclopedia.)

Interior View of the Peerless Style RR Coin Piano. Introduced in 1910, Above the keyboard is the pneumatic stack, and the piano action. There is no mandolin attachment. The cast lettering on the piano plate reads: "Peerless Piano Player Co.; F. Engelhardt & Sons, Prop'rs." Rubber tubing from the stack is connected to metal nipples that pass through the keybed between the piano keys, from which another section of rubber tubing connects to the individual holes in the tracker bar.

Below the keyboard, the electric motor that powers the player mechanisms is front and center. The multi-tune rewind roll frame is to the right and is powered by a round leather belt that snakes its way through an idler pulley mounted on the cabinet floor and then goes upward to another small diameter pulley mounted on the front end of the feeder pump crankshaft. To the left of the motor is the vacuum reservoir, and to its left is the three lobe vacuum feeder pump, consisting of three bellows, each individually connected to the overhead crankshaft. An odd characteristic of Peerless feeder pumps is that each connecting rod is inflexibly attached to the moving half of the bellows, and so the moving half tilts back and forth as the top of the connecting rod follows the rotational position of its respective crank. At far left is a tall wooden generously sized coin collection box.

(Photograph courtesy of Dana Johnson.)

Leader of Peerless Style RR (Reroll) Music Roll. This style R.R. music roll No-10012 has two hand-written notations of “No. 2,” and below the left side notation is a date of “January 23, 1912.” What exactly these notations might suggest is subject to interpretation. Style R.R. music rolls are said to have up to 20 tunes per roll, and the leader of this particular roll does indeed list 20 tunes—the tune titles rubber stamped in purple ink. Curiously, the tune titles appear to be grouped in blocks of five per rubber stamp, the first group stamped in a larger type face than the others, but all 4 blocks of five tunes are easily differentiated due to discernible differences in the type face and/or the uneven left side margin, each subsequent block of five tunes offset slightly to the right. It appears that for R.R. Roll #10012 they merely ganged together the rubber stamps for four different five-tune music rolls. Whether the length of the arrangements used on the five tune rolls were the same for the twenty tune rolls is unknown. The tunes listed are as follows:
1. The Kerry Gow.
2. Skylarking.
3. Sanitol.
4. Unrequited Love.
5. Belinda.
6. That Mesmerizing Mendelssohn.
7. Has Anybody here seen Kelly?
8. Slinky Eyes.
9. Jun-A-Da-Jun
10. Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet.
11. The Frolic of the White ?????.
12. Fairy Kisses.
13. Promenade.
14. Two Hearts.
15. Who let the Cows Out?
16. Meet me to-night in Dreamland.
17. In the Spring I'll bring a ring around to Rosie.
18. The Garden of Dreams.
19. There's a big Cry Baby in the Moon.
20. I wish I had my old girl back again.