Hi everyone; I've just got back from a short holiday and have been
enjoyably working through a backup of MMDs.

As usual, Dan Wilson has come up with a knowledgeable and interesting
note on player rolls,this time on the Metrostyle line.  I agree with
Dan; it's a useful guide, but doesn't need to be treated as holy writ.
Dan also indicates that rolls Metrostyled after WW1 aren't very
reliable.  But how about those with a liitle block of text at the
beginning of the Metrostyle line; weren't these lines put on the roll
with a rubber printing strip (or stencil) as long as the roll itself?
Didn't the Aeolian Co. in the UK build a special printing tower at the
factory at Hayes near London in order to print Metrostyle and
expression lines on their rolls?

I'm only regurgitating stuff here that Dan has told me in the past or
that I've read in the (British) PPG Bulletin, but my understanding is
that in the early days of Metrostyling, an operative (usually female)
would follow a line on a master roll with a pantograph arrangement that
controlled about a dozen pens. Each pen wrote a red line on a separate
roll.  The accuracy of the result depended on the care of the operator,
which was likely to very - I can't think of a more boring job!  But I
would have thought that if Aeolian went to the trouble of making a
rubber stencil 30 or 40 feet long, they would have also made the effort
of getting it right.

My feeling is that the stencilled Metrostyle lines are usually pretty
reliable but the hand-drawn ones aren't.  What do you say, Dan?

John Phillips.