Mark Reinhart said (041208 MMDigest):

> The tracker bar has a row of holes at 6-to-the-inch up top for
> everything up to the Apollo Concert rolls.  The lower 9-to-the-inch
> row also runs 15 inches wide, for the Solo Apollo.  The player is pedal
> operated with spring wound roll drive.  There is a lever you slide to
> activate the expression.  Another lever is moved to activate the
> appropriate ports.

What is especially interesting about this piano is that it marks the
beginning of the standardization of the 88-note scale that eventually
conquered the player piano world.  As I understand it, Melville Clark
was the first with an 88-note scale, using the 15-inch-wide, 6 notes
per inch, Apollo Concert roll.  The tracker-bar enabled 65- and 58-note
rolls to be played as well.  This would have been around 1901.

Then he was the first with an expression system, the Solo Apollo, also
using the 15-inch wide roll, but to squeeze the expression perforations
in as well as the notes, he had to shrink everything to 9 per inch,
with the notes in the middle of the roll.  This was the modern 88-note
scale.

My only question is, when he decided to market an 11-1/2 inch roll with
the 88 notes only, what did he call that?  And when was it?

I will guess the date of this piano for sale is 1905.  I know I'm what
the British call a rivet-counter, but it deserves to be saved.  $200
doesn't seem much for such a find.

Dan Wilson, London