Gloria --  Old piano rolls in good condition always look more valuable
than they are, alas.  Most people collect them for the music on them
rather than their historic status -- and most really old rolls like
these contain classical music which appealed to the moneyed people the
original makers were trying to interest, and less so to modern
collectors.

There is a small clique of "pianola" owners who greatly value classical
pieces for the great rewards they offer in being played skillfully, but
they of course benefit from there being many surviving classical rolls
and will only offer large sums for very rare rolls.

If your rolls have dimples -- hollows -- in the ends, they are the
later 88-note type and are worth about $2.50 in USA and =L=2.00 in
England.  If they have metal pins in the ends, they are the older
65-note standard and are worth rather over half these sums -- say $1.75
or =L=1.20.

The better market for the music is currently in England.  Last week I
in fact collected 35 88-note classical rolls from a lady in Cheltenham
who had found them in the loft of the house she had bought; since they
included Howells's piano concerto (four-hand version) and several
Debussy pieces I wanted, I gave her =L=75.00 in cash.  Dealers might
have beaten her down to =L=30 or =L=40 and sold them piecemeal, over
time, for =L=90 to =L=100.

The most I have ever offered for a roll was =L=15.00 20 years ago --
say around $45 now -- which was the last movement of the Cesar Franck
violin sonata (violin part included), which is much rarer than the
earlier movements.  This was to a well-known roll shop in Brighton on
the off chance of the roll coming in.  The very next time I called, the
only copy I've ever seen (even now) was in the ordinary shelves, they'd
not kept it for me and I bought it for 50p (80 cents).

The Mechanical Music Digest has a resource list in which roll dealers
are listed.

Dan Wilson, London