THE ENCORE
AUTOMATIC BANJO
Richard L. Crandall

The Encore Automatic Banjo has been in the spotlight as a prime collector's piece ever since some properly restored machines were heard playing such old favorites as "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "My Old Kentucky Home," and "Maple Leaf Rag."
For those with a historical bent, the Encore lives up to its self-proclaimed title, "The King of Slot Machines." It was the very first commercially successful American coin-operated automatic music machine.

Figure 1. Author's original Encore beside a Ramey Replica.
Can you tell? Replica is on the left.

Patents unique to the Banjo date back to 1892, and its debut in the market dates to late 1896.
The Encore is also the first machine of its type in modem times to be in such demand as to warrant the expense of being replicated. Today, 14 exquisite replicas are in collections, almost matching in number the 19 known originals.
Dave Bowers, in his Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical Instruments, gives the Banjo top billing, with 21 pages of coverage and with editorial comments such as:

Figure 2a. Introductory page to one of the original President's letterbooks.

The Encore Automatic Banjo is today one of the most interesting automatic musical instruments which have survived from years ago. The concept of a real banjo automatically operated by tiny mechanical "fingers" and playing in a very realistic manner is a fascinating one.

There is some question as to whether the Banjo instrument itself is a real banjo, since its squared-off neck and wide string spacing would make it difficult to play manually. Even so, I had the good fortune of discovering a worn carrying case with an original Banjo inside. Someone had removed the banjo from an Encore, drilled in a fifth peg for the short string, and obviously played the instrument manually.

Included in the Encyclopedia was a listing of over 100 of the 900 letters and papers from the original files of Mr. C. B. Kendall, the entrepreneurial spirit behind the various Banjo companies. Dave Bowers sensed my own passion for early instruments and their history and thoughtfully parted with his Encore files. These have served as a base to which other literature has been added, including the library of the defunct Boyer Museum of Coin-Operated Machines of Chicago Heights.

In-depth studies of early machines, such as the Encore, the Wurlitzer Harp, Peerless nickelodeons, Regina music boxes, etc., would reveal a fascinating fabric of technical innovation, entrepreneurial hardships, and

Figure 2b. Assorted paperwork from both New England and New York companies.

marketing aggressiveness. In the case of the Encore, we have a wealth of information to draw upon.

Who Invented the Encore Banjo?

One of the many fascinations that the turn-of-the-century mechanical music machines holds is the tangible evidence of the unstoppable invent-iveness of the day, in spite of limited resource availability. Often it was one person who masterminded a new breakthrough - such as J. W. Whitlock with the Wurlitzer Harp (1899), John Gabel with his Gabel's Automatic Entertainer (1905), and Henry Sandell with the Mills Violano-Virtuoso (1906).

So why has obscurity enshrouded the inventor(s) of the Encore Banjo? After all, it does hold an important position among the earliest of the music machines.

The search begins with the patent listings on the crest of the Manhattan-type Encore, shown in Figure 3. The early patents date back to June 14,

Figure 3. Top, New England Banjo crest. bottom, New York crest with patents

1881, but have nothing to do with the banjo. The first 17 patents originally belonged to John McTammany, Jr. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the self-proclaimed (proven only to some) inventor of the perforated roll-controlled musical instrument. McTammany showered the patent office with appli¬cations and was granted hundreds of them. His proximity to Boston must have brought him in contact with C. B. Kendall, the prime mover behind the commercialization of the Encore. The seventeen McTammany patents purchased by Kendall covered the various aspects of perforated paper-roll operation. roll frame and tracking bars, treadle operation, endless-roll as
well as "rewind-type" roll operation, and the combination of a bellows ("pump") and pneumatic machines ("pneumatics") for reed lifters.
The last of the purchased McTammany patents (U.S. No. 400,102) was granted on March 26, 1889, and there is indication that the first Banjo people were in some form of operation just a year later in 1890. Here is a quote from a later Encore advertising piece:

The patents owned and controlled by the American Automusic Co. of N.J. [author: a post-1900 Banjo company] cover in its entirety a new and important branch of Musical Art, viz. The Automatic Operation of Picked Stringed Instruments such as the Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Zither and Harp and the various combination of these which will be effected through the natural development and evolution of this novel application of mechanics.

The experimental work in this field, which was successfully terminated by the close of the year 1897, covered a period of about seven years and represents the labor of some half-dozen different inventors and mechanical musical experts whose interests have all been acquired by the American Automusic Co. by purchase and assignment.

It may be added that this list [of patents[ embraces absolutely all the Letters Patent of the U.S. in existence which relate either specifically or remotely to the art under discussion and therefore that the protection afforded to the enterprise is as full and complete as is possible to attain under this form of special priviledge.

The Banjo entrepreneurs thought they had a monopoly on mechanical picking of all kinds of stringed instruments, but the monopoly was not as tight as Kendall thought, since J. B. Whitlock of Rising Sun, Indiana, was granted a patent in 1899 for a mechanically picked harp, which was also judged in its patents to be usable for "banjos. guitars and mandolins." It is true that Whitlock's picking method is entire different from that of the Encore and even more suitable for a harp, since a softer pick is achieved.

History buffs will be interested in a comment in one of the McTammany patents in the Encore list that speaks of his invention in relation to automatic musical instruments "which are operated or governed by means of a perforated sheet of paper or other material constructed somewhat upon the principle of the pattern-cards of a Jacquard loom." The Jacquard loom is an early 1800's weaving machine controlled by punched cards much like the first computers of the 1950's. It is amusing to think that the Encore may be the "missing link" between the first example of programmed automation and the most modem fields of electronic computing. It certainly is an established fact that there were ties of some kind between the Englehardt Piano Co., makers of the first coin-operated piano around 1898. and the American Automusic Company. The link further extended to Sperry Rand Company when it reputedly acquired Englehardt. Sperry was the developer of the Univac 1, the first commercial computer. This suggests a thread (albeit thin) from the Jacquard loom to the McTammany player reed-organ to the

Encore Banjo to the Peerless nickelodeon to the Univac 1 computer ... each a first in its class!

Back to the subject at hand, a scan of McTammany's patents reveals nothing about banjos specifically. The first patent (U.S. No. 488,520) that actually dealt with a banjo was filed on March 9, 1892. and granted on December 20 of that same year. The inventor was Willard Gilman of Boston. The patent was for an electromagnetic device that could be used for a banjo, mandolin, harp, or other similar stringed sinstrument. Its conception was simple enough. The picking was done by a star-wheel positioned over each string that plucked the strings with no return motion - much like a musical box "plucks" its comb. The closing of an individual circuit would advance the appropriate star-wheel and play one note.

This model used a five-string banjo (unlike the commercial Encore's four strings), and all five pickers were controlled by roll perforations in the rightmost five consecutive tracker positions. Metal fingers felt for the holes in the roll in a fashion similar to that in the later Violano-Virtuoso.

On October 3, 1893, Gilman was granted patent (U.S. No. 505.878) for perforated sheet music. The five picker holes were moved to the left, and provision was made for coin start-and-stop operation. The patent claimed applicability to any fretted instrument, this time including violins and guitars, clearly a shotgun approach to broadening the patent. since no one would stand for listening to a picked violin for long!

Again, on October 8, 1895, Gilman was granted a patent (U.S. No. 547,544) for a coin slot that differentiated between coins and avoided the insertion of undesirable foreign matter dropped into the coin chute. This latter feature is undoubtedly what avoided rejection by the patent office, since patents back to 1890 (U.S. No. 339,069) exist for coin-slot operation. Many other coin-slot patents were granted subsequent to Gilman's, and no infringement cases are known.

On April 14, 1896, at the hands of the same attorneys that Gilman used, Mr. William S. Reed of Leominster, Massachusetts, was granted U.S. patent No. 558,419 for pneumatic picking and fretting on a five-string banjo. The application was filed three years earlier on June 23, 1893, so appar¬ently there was some difficulty in approving the patent.

But Gilman was still at it, and here we get confirmation as to the existence of C. B. Kendall and the American Automatic Banjo Company, the earliest corporate entity involved with the Encore. Gilman filed a patent on July 21, 1894, for certain electromagnetic banjo improvements, and the application provides for assignment to the Banjo company. Not only was the company formed, but Kendall was involved, since he recalls in a later history (he wrote in 1904) that:

The first automatic banjo was constructed upon the electro-magnetic system, but the magnets then used were of the telegraphic type, too jerky and noisy to be practicable. Furthermore. the only electric current available was taken from the street lighting lines at 110 volts, which caused so much sparking upon the perforated paper music as to sometimes burn them up and endanger the premises. At that time the then existing storage batteries were out of the question.

(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet I.
W. H. GILMAN.
ELECTRICALLY OPERATED STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
No. 488,520. Patented Dec. 20, 1892.

Figure 4. First page of Gilman patent, U.S. No. 488,520.

The next model was made upon the pneumatic system and was deemed satisfactory [author: based upon the Reed patent'. A company was formed and the business begun in New York in 1897. A system of agencies was established in various pans of the United States, giving to an agent the exclusive right to his territory.

There was a flurry of seven patents granted in 1898, two of which were attributed to Kendall himself. It was then that the picker familiar to collectors today was devised by a Walfrid Gustofson of New York City. A good guess is that Gustofson was employed by the New York company and contributed to a divergence in design between the New York and New England factories.

Many more patents were filed and granted, indicating a wide range of experimentation. After Gilman had his original electromagnetic banjo con-ception completed in early 1892 along with Reed's important pneumatic improvements completed in the middle of 1893, the rest of the patents were engineering improvements.

It therefore seems that technically Willard H. Gilman invented the automatic banjo and C. B. Kendall was the entrepreneur, technical con-tributor, and early financier who rounded up the necessary patent protection and shepherded the developments to the point of commercial release. The date of Kendall's earliest involvement can be tracked back to 1894, but it is likely that he was the original prime force in 1890.

What were the Different Models of the Encore?

The answer to this question has taken quite a bit of unravelling, and there is more that can be done as data is collected on the remaining extant machines. There is strong evidence that the first automatic banjos were produced before the Encore name was conceived, and they were of the Gilman electromagnetic type of technology. There are no known surviving examples. It is likely that however many were produced, they were scrapped and converted to the first Reed-type of pneumatic version. This version was sufficiently perfected to be sold commercially.

TRADEMARK.
THE AMERICAN AUTOMATIC BANJO COMPANY. BANJOS.
No. 31,245. Registered Feb. 15, 1898.

Figure 5. Encore trademark.


Figure 6. Corporate seals of the New England companies.

The Encore name was first used in May, 1897, and trademarked later in that year. It appeared both in the crest casting and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the lower neck portion of the banjo instrument. Later models (post-1900) used 3/32-inch thick German silver from which the Encore script trademark was cut out and applied to the banjo neck.

The model differences can best be understood by clarifying the various corporate entities. In 1896 Kendall, in typical entrepreneurial style, compli-cated the corporate structure by establishing two principal companies, the New England Automatic Banjo Co. and the American Automatic Banjo Co. of New Jersey (but located in New York), each with its own factory. The New England company governed the rights to Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, plus non-exclusive rights to foreign countries. Manufacturing rights for the New England entity were granted to a com¬pany already in existence and owned by Kendall, the Eastern Specialty Co.

The New Jersey company retained the rights to New York and the rest of the U.S. outside of New England. I don't doubt that Kendall, a Bostonian, believed that was a 50/50 split: put New York in one company and Boston in the other and the rest is whatever you can make of it.

In both the New Jersey and New England companies, Kendall stayed somewhat in the background. W. Scott O'Connor of later Connorized Music fame, became president of the New Jersey company and came to own 3,869 out of the 3,889 shares of common stock. Mr. F. R. Pendleton became president of the New England company on June 13, 1899. He only owned one share, and Kendall owned the rest.

Clearly, the American Automatic Banjo Company of New Jersey was intended to be the parent at least for a while, and all the patents were continually assigned to this company: however, a 1903 letter discloses where the real power lay, when Pendleton learned that Kendall had an option all along to buy the entire New Jersey company, including all Banjos for $10,000 cash. Pendleton wrote of his 1903 conversation with Kendall: "He said he wanted to see the Auto-Manufacturing Company (Boston) get the Automusic Company (New Jersey) as was the original intention" [emphasis added].

Kendall must have gotten this option in exchange for transferring the patents and prototypes to the New Jersey company. These two factories were the source of model divergence.

The version of the Encore produced in Boston between 1897 and 1900 (of which 100 to 200 were made) was a somewhat more primitive machine. These machines can be detected by their early crest with the Encore name cast in script, rear-loading roll frame, and a valve chest that uses 5/16-inch diameter steel balls for valves. It was the valves that caused a lot of the trouble, particularly in picker responsiveness. As Kendall recalled,

The pneumatic system did not continue as satisfactory as was expec¬ted, on account of the great power requirements to operate it, as well as its complications and the many troubles arising therefrom, and the limited area of territory that could be occupied, even in the large cities, because of the unavailable necessity of using the street-light electric current for a native power to operate the pneumatics.

Both companies ran into severe trouble, and Kendall and O'Connor decided to re-form the companies and start over.

In New York, the American Automusic Company was formed in April of 1899, still with W. Scott O'Connor at the helm. The Banjo business continued, but with a new style Encore that became unique to the New York factory. The valves already were completely different and more responsive, even though they were configured in an odd combination of a small pneumatic moving a lead valve. The roll frame was located in the front of the machine for greater ease of loading, and other improvements were made as to the durability of the machine. The cast-metal plate on the top crest had already been changed, giving prominence to the many patents that led to the current machine. The original company name, the American Automatic Banjo Co. of New Jersey, was left permanently cast into the plate of the New York machine and was never changed to the Automusic name. Somewhere along the line, the lower-front door-panel design changed from an arched inset to a rectangular pattern, but since the mechanisms slide in and out of the case easily (for repair), many times the door panels are not a reliable indication of the age of a machine.

The Boston companies took longer to re-incorporate, undoubtedly wait¬ing for a succesful response to financing proposals. Finally, the investment

group of Davis & Soule of Waterville, Maine, put up the money, and the Auto-Manufacturing Co. opened its doors on March 2, 1901. The assets of both the Eastern Specialty Company and the New England Automatic Banjo Co. were transferred to the new operation, and its employment hit an all-time high of ten people, plus Kendall. From then on, the New England company went downhill, and the New York company prospered until 1903 or so.

Kendall was the driving force behind the Auto-Manufacturing Co. even though Pendleton was president. It is clear from the hundreds of letters that are in the author's files that Pendleton was incapable of handling the business, and Kendall's participation, while erratic, was forceful and creative.

The Boston machine was subject to some unsuccessful experimentation and change. For instance, instead of changing the valve arrangement, Pendleton searched for lighter aluminum balls to replace the steel ones. This quest began in March of 1901 and widened to any aluminum fabricator in the entire Eastern seaboard. None were found for years, during which time the "newer style" Boston banjos were made. There is some indication of an order being placed for aluminum balls in 1905, but by then they could have only been intended for replacement parts since Boston Encore production had already slowed to a standstill.

Figure 7. Basket holding an Encore end-less roll. These were easily slid in and out to change rolls without having to rewind. Is this the first cassette?

The roll frame was kept in the rear, which caused some incompati¬bility and acrimony between the Boston company and the New York company. The latter company was the sole producer of the music rolls, which were set up in the reverse to what Boston needed. On the New York machine, the bass-string pick¬er holes are on the left of the paper, and the paper travels downward in front. On the Boston machine, the bass picker hole is the rightmost position on the paper, and the paper travels up. The incompatibility was not great, since all that was needed was to turn the New York roll a-round, but there were problems nonetheless, since the lapping of the paper at the joints was wrong for the Boston machine.

Both companies used the same banjo parts (which came from Boston) and coin counters (which came from New York), and it appears that both switched from inlaying the Encore name in the neck of the banjo to surface-mounting a German-silver script Encore at the same location.

The Boston roll frame had paper-feed problems that were solved by replacing the wood rollers with steel rollers. The cast-brass decorative corners in the front door and sides were of either of two patterns: fancy curlicues or leaves. The castings were either unpolished brass or surface polished and nickel-plated.

Cosmetically, in both instances the case was made of solid quarter-sawed oak, but records indicate that a half-dozen mahogany cases were made in both factories. These, along with some oak-cased machines, were used without a coin slot and coin counter as home models. There is a record of the Boston company having demonstrated the first home model in France at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Three of this type are known to survive.

Figure 8. Unique among early coin-operated machines was a four-digit pneumatically operated coin counter used for checking payouts under percentage leases.

Coinage was both the nickel and the penny for the U.S. machines, but a few dozen went to England with either six-pence or penny slots. Strings came from the National Musical String Co., New Brunswick, New Jersey. A mute that hangs from the bridge was offered, but no mutes have surfaced. The motor was a story in itself. As far as Kendall was concerned, electricity, not women, was the source of all problems. The Encore was one of the first electrified machines, but that didn't feel like an honor in those days. You know the saying, "The earliest Christians get the best lions. ..°"

The Boston machine needed a more powerful motor than the New York machine, which was assumed to be caused partially by the steel balls used as valves. Aside from that, the prevailing electric current was non-uniform.

One Encore had to run on 52 volts, 60 cycles, another at 104 volts, 40 cycles, and yet another at 62 volts, 135 cycles. The New York machines first operated with Holtzer-Cabot motors (A.C. and D.C.) and then switched to General Electric. The Boston company experimented with storage batteries (they could run 10 hours, but were too expensive), spring-wound motors (not powerful enough), gas engines, and a foot-pumped banjo - anything to get away from electricity.

Letters such as these were typical:

Dear sir,
Your telegram just received as follows: `Five hundred volts direct current same as street car.' We have been called upon before to run our Banjo on a 500 volt current and the only way that it could be done was by putting lamps in series as a resistance, but the fluctuation of the current was so great under these conditions that the results were not satisfactory.

This one really takes the cake:

Dear sir,
We have learned that there are two currents in Gloucester, a day and a night current, of which the day current is high frequency, and the night current is low frequency. The motor we sent you is the one adapted for the day current. We will express you another motor, low frequency, which can be used for the night current and you will be obliged to shift them every night and morning ('.)

Motors kept burning out, and the demands on Holtzer-Cabot were great. In a letter on October 21, 1902, from Pendleton to Holtzer-Cabot, the frustration is clear:

Dear Sirs,
We are very disappointed that you did not ship the motor which we wished sent to Norridgeweek, Maine. You must have known that we were anxious for it, for we wrote a letter and then telephoned. The result is that one of our machines remained out of action for two weeks, losing us considerable money, and also hurting our reputation.

Why should one business house treat another as if it were a thief and a rascal, without any cause whatsoever?

Now the facts of the matter is just here: everything we send to you to be repaired we have to wait weeks and months for, and probably would never get it without constantly begging and pleading with you. And it is all because, presumably, you know that you are the only place we can go for motor repair work, consequently you can be just as disagreeable as you please.

The point behind this whole section on motors is that there were many motors that can be considered "original" for the Encore - particularly alternating-current motors; however, there is one motor that collectors consider the "grand-daddy" of them all - the Holtzer-Cabot D.C. motor shown in Figure 9.

These can be made to work today from a simple D.C. power supply, and they fascinate everyone who peers "under the hood" of Encores that have this type. Some variation in speed is detectable, but it does work. It looks like it belongs in the Smithsonian.

After all this background, the collector may ask, how do I tell if an Encore is complete and original? Start with the case - they were all nearly identical except for the top crest and the inset panels in the lower-front doors. There is one collector who claims to have an original Encore case that is different and fancier. There is no mention of such a case in the literature, so further scrutiny is in order.

Figure 10. Encore in the author's collec¬tion. Note where original tune card hung. Also the "badge" shaped shield surround¬ing banjo neck covers the fret pneu¬matics.

Next, look for a consistency of features for either the New York or Boston machines. While many early-style machines were factory converted to later styles, only a few were converted from Boston style to New York style. In final analysis, if the collector is considering paying the substantial sums that the Encore is worth, he should spend the small amount it might take to have an experienced restorer help him.

How Many Were Made?

There are many conflicting statements in the literature concern¬ing the production quantities of the various models. The approach I took was to ignore all advertising claims and to rely upon the financial statements, production papers, and serial numbers of extant machines.

Figures 11a & 11 b. This is Encore No. 1721, owned and beautifully restored by Hayes McClaren of Fresno, California. On the left, the curved shield surrounding the banjo is the alternate style. On the right is a rear view of the pump and stack.

From 1897 until 1903, approximately 800 banjos of all models were made. This was an estimate made by Kendall in 1903 and handwritten in his own personal notes at a time when he was being negative about past accomplishments of both the New York and New England ventures. Rather than being his normal puffery, this statement has some credibility.

Subsequent to 1903, there were few or none produced of the Boston machine. The New England Co. had been stripped down to two employees in late 1900, and existing machines were circulated from one location to the next. New York serial numbers extant today range from 1721 through 4010. No. 1721 was from the earlier New York (New Jersey) company, and No. 4010 was one of the last to be produced.

There may have been gaps in serial number ranges that mark the change-over from one company to another. At the present time, the best estimate of the number of original machines would have to be developed as follows:

Boston Machines

Serials 50-100 - old style, 1897-1900
Serials 200-330 - later style, 1901-1903 Unknown Serials - approximately 10 home style

Manhattan Machines

Serials 1500-1800 - old style, 1897-1899 Serials 2000-4025 - new style, 1900-1908 Serials H1-H20 - home style 1900
Total Estimate: 2525 machines

If anything, this estimate is low. The Encore was therefore a success and sold in greater quantities than a number of other kinds of machines. Among the novelty instruments, the Violano-Virtuoso is credited as having been a great success. It had the marketing prowess of the Mills Novelty Co. behind it, and during the years 1908-1928 a total of 4500 were sold - not even double the earlier Encore.

The old "one per cent survival" rule would indicate 25 Encores should exist today, and indeed 19 are known and have been catalogued.

How to Find an Encore Today

The Encore is both highly desirable and rare, and, if properly restored, a fun-sounding instrument. This combination of factors makes it a very challenging acquisition for the present-day collector. In the three years 1979-1981, only five original Encores have come up for sale from collections. The demand is high, and a market has developed for a replica that is now being produced in limited quantities by a topnotch restorer, Dave Ramey (see Figure 1). A total of 14 of these have been produced at the time of this writing, several of which have gone to Europe.

Figure 12. This is the way to find them. Two New York banjos in the rough.

Those who seek the excitement of a "find" out in the countryside may wish to have the following information.

The last location of the factory of the Boston company was at 38 Osborne Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1906, there were upwards of 40 machines there. The New York factory was at 227-229 Bleeker Street. and upwards of 30 machines were there in 1906. Boston proper would not be fertile ground since the records indicate all machines in commission were removed from there on account of a switch to D.C. power in 1903.

The Maryland agent, F. W. Rohrs, Philadelphia Road and Hamilton Avenue, Baltimore, had a stock of about 15 machines that were found along with a dozen more in a pair of barns in the 1960's. These were disbursed in groups, and not all the Banjos are in recorded collections. Fourteen of them were badly fire damaged, but parts from them were used as the basis for Ramey's replica Encore.
Single machines have been spotted or acquired from Northern Canada; Ithaca, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; somewhere in Arizona; and somewhere in Texas. Seventeen machines were sent to the British Mutoscope and Biograph Co. in London in 1902. The author chased that lead to a theater at 18 Great Windmill Street and learned that the company moved to an address outside London before it went broke in 1907. Someone ought to chase down that address.

Originally, Encores were most popular in hotels, barber shops, lunch rooms, pool rooms, and drug stores. Above all those, I would guess old storage rooms would be the best bet, since operators typically retired them from service as they went out of favor.

Geographically, I would concentrate in the action towns of the 1900-1908 period when most of the machines were distributed. Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas should offer the best hunting.

Of course, if you just have to have one and you've got some money to invest, your best bet is to make your desires known to the existing owners. The machines that are still in private collections do change hands. In 1979 two Encores sold from country museums into private collections. In 1980 two changed hands, and in 1981 only one was sold. So the advanced collection can have an Encore if patience, followed by fast action, is exercised.

For my own part, I would appreciate hearing from any collector having literature or additional knowledge of the Encore's history or its use in the Englehardt Banjorchestra.

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