Richard Simonton's find of a cache of letters written by Edwin
Welte and Karl Bockisch definitely is museum-quality material, as he
suggests.  I recommend he contact the International Piano Archives
at the University of Maryland (IPAM); I think they would be very
interested, with their collections including lots of mechanical
musical items.

Larry Lobel

 [ Like collectors, all libraries and museums enjoy expanding their
 [ holdings, but not all make the holdings available for copying.
 [ IPAM (with a fine roll collection) and USC (with the Simonton
 [ collection of several hundred Welte rolls) do not lend rolls
 [ for copying, so the piano roll collections (which are presumed
 [ to include many rare performances) are crumbling to dust.  I hope
 [ that a nicer place can be found for Richard's recent discoveries.
 [ -- Robbie