Back on March 16, Brian Thornton posted a question about rolls for
a rare and beautiful Peerless coin piano.  The stained glass really
is quite stunning.

His question prompted me to go look closely at the tracker bar of my
Peerless "Elite", which is set up to play all 88 notes of the piano.
I noticed one striking difference about the tracker bar in the piano
located by Brian:  the holes appear to extend out right to the edge
of the paper.  The tracker bar on my "Elite" has 1/2-inch of "dead
space" on both sides between the last hole and the edge of the paper.
(Mine also has simple rectangular holes rather than trapezoidal holes.)

This is extremely speculative, but allow me to suggest: is it possible
that Engelhardt "cut down" surplus tracker bars to use in these pianos?
Is it possible that only 65 of those 71 holes are actually used?
I would be very interested to learn about the tubing strategy and the
number of stack pneumatics in this beautiful machine.

A number of years ago, I encountered an interesting Peerless coin piano
at an auction in South Dakota.  It used the same case as an "Elite",
but it appeared to play what I thought was a 65-note roll.  (I don't
recall seeing the bare tracker bar.) The stack and pumps appeared to be
entirely original.  It did not appear to have ever had the 88 playing
notes expected of an "Elite".  Therefore, I assumed that it was a
"transition" machine made as the 88-note "Elite" roll was being phased
out.  The original roll on its spool frame was the only roll with it.

Originally, this piano had a Circassian walnut case.  Unfortunately,
the machine appeared to have been through a fire, and the top of the
case was rather amateurishly rebuilt.  The player mechanism, however,
appeared to be complete and original.

Due to the damaged case, I believe that the purchaser had designs of
rebuilding it into a Peerless orchestrion.  So possibly there is at
least _one_ roll out there that might fit Brian's machine.

Now, to address Brian's actual question: Should he keep it original?
While I tend to be a purist, my opinion is that it would be okay to
convert this piano to play other roll formats, such as "A" rolls, as
long as the conversion were done in a way that the machine could be
converted back to its original format.  After all, it is a long shot
that he will find original rolls.  Nevertheless, it is possible, and
if some rolls did surface, it would be really interesting, and
historically valuable, to hear them!

I suppose that Brian's suggestion of custom-fitting rolls to this piano
would be even better, if he has the patience to do this.  Nevertheless,
I would not think negatively of him if he took the more practical route
of changing it over to a different format, as long as he does this in
a reversible manner (as I assume he would).  That's my two cents.

Best regards,
Tom Chase