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EUGENE DE ROY
-A recollection-
A scene in Eugene DeRoy's Symphonia piano and orchestrion roll
factory in the 1920's. The firm produced perforated paper rolls for
Hupfeld, Philipps, Popper, Weber, and other instruments.
It was about six or seven years ago, I recall, that I received a thin
blue paper airmail envelope with an Antwerp, Belgium postmark. Upon
opening the missive I noticed a rubber stamped "SYMPHONIA"
heading above the message.
The contents of the letter were fascinating. During 1962 and 1963 I
spent quite a bit of time writing to and visiting various persons in
Europe in an effort to track down a few orchestrions made years earlier
by Hupfeld, Philipps, Popper, and other firms. I wrote to collectors,
museums and to just about any other name I could find that might
possibly have a scrap of information on these nostalgic mechanical
music makers. At the time there was little collector interest in Europe
in large orchestrions. This situation was mainly due to the lack of
specimens to collect. At the same time, I might mention, there was an
intense interest in band organs - an interest that continues unabated
today. During a visit to Germany about this time I was amazed to learn
from a dealer that he had just sold a band organ to a collector in
England for the sum of $29,000.00. To be sure, the organ was a very
large and impressive one.
During my quest for orchestrions and orchestrion information (l
sought original catalogues and literature just as avidly as the
instruments themselves) letter after letter was answered with, "Sorry, I
don't have any Hupfeld orchestrions, nor do I know of anyone who
does... " - or something in a similar vein.
The Symphonia letter was different. The writer, Eugene DeRoy, not
only said that he knew of a number of surviving orchestrions, but he
went on to say that he once made music rolls fOI virtually every
different orchestrion type. He then proceeded to list new music rolls he
currently had in stock for the Hupfeld Helios, the Hupfeld Pan, the
Weber orchestrions of various types, and others· instruments which by
that time, after much futile searching, seemed to me to be almost
legendary and unobtainable.
An exchange of correspondence followed. My first purchase from
Mr. DeRoy was a Pianella Style C - a small keyboard piano with a
xylophone mounted horizontally at the top. In describing the Pianella
Mr. DeRoy sent a photocopy of an old catalogue illustration. From this
clue 1 found that he had a wonderful selection of old·time historical
material.
Next from Mr. DeRoy came a Hupfeld Helios 11/25 orchestrion with
a duplex roll mechanism. This impressive instrument measured 10'6"
high and was one of the classic pieces from what 1 like to call the "era
of elegant orchestrions" - the years just after the turn of the 20th
century. 1 lost no time buying the Helios 11/25 for the quoted four
figure sum. As might be logically expected, next came a trip to Belgium
to visit Mr. DeRoy in person.
His rendezvous instructions, relayed to me in advance in a letter,
went something like this: "I shall meet you at the airport. From there
we shall go to my daughter's home which is not far away. 1 shall then
show you your Hupfeld as she lives with her. I will never forget Mr.
DeRoy's charming trait of imparting human "him" and "her"
characteristics to his orchestrion descriptions!
After viewing the Helios 11/25 which was languishing in a rather
disassembled state in a cramped garage we drove to Mr. DeRoy's
combined home and workshop in Borgerhout, a district of Antwerp.
There 1 met Mrs. DeRoy, his charming wife.
Years earlier Symphonia had been a factory type of operation which
was located at different times in several parts of Antwerp. Now the
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Symphonia Co. was a small over the counter shop which did its main
business in selling piano parts: new felt hammers, new strings, piano
hardware, and the like.
In Mr. and Mrs. DeRoy I found a veritable gold mine of information
pertaining to my favorite hobby subject: the "gOOd old days" when
coin-operated pianos, orchestrions, reproducing pianos, organs and
other self.playing instruments reigned supreme on the musical scene.
Mr. DeRoy (I never called him by his first name) entered the field of
mechanical music in the 1920's. His father-in-law was a barrel organ
maker, and from him Mr. DeRoy learned the trade. At this time
barrel-operated instruments of all kinds were losing favor to the newer
and more conveniently operated paper roll types. Paper music rolls
were cheap and could be made quickly as new popular tunes captured
the fancy of the public. To capitalize on this market the Symphonion
Music Roll Co. was born.
It was soon learned that there was a very large market for rolls to go
on the many types of coin pianos and orchestrions made in Germany
by Philipps, Hupfeld, Weber, Popper, and a host of others. The
manufacturers of the orchestrions viewed the production of music rolls
as a necessary evil to help sell the instruments. Mr. DeRoy viewed the
production of music rolls as a profitable and worthwhile business in
itself.
By coming on the market with new tunes faster than the orchestrion
makers could and by charging less for the rolls Symphonia soon had a
thriving business by the tail. It was all the firm could do to keep up
with the flood of orders that kept pouring in from all over Europe and,
to a lesser extent, from other parts of the world. I remember Mr.
DeRoy mentioning that he had several customers in Canada for Hupfeld
rolls and that one of them, a Newfoundland gentlemen, had ordered as
recently as the late 1950's.
At first the orchestrion makers resented this incursion into their
private music roll making preserve. Soon they learned that the
availability of inexpensive really ul}-to·date Symphonia rolls for their
instruments sharply increased their orchestrion selling business· and the
attitude changed from one of hostility to one of cooperation. They
started furnishing Symphonia with new tracker scales and layouts as
new types of instruments were introduced.
One maker, Imhof & Mulde of Vohrenbach, Germany, refused to go
along with Mr. DeRoy's business. In answer to a request for a tracker
bar layout scale for each of the Imhof instrumcnts Mr. DeRoy was told
that the making of Imhof rolls would not be possible . and that,
furthermore, they would not release any of the "top secret" scale
information to him. To this Mr. DeRoy replied, "AliI have to do is see
one of your instruments and in less than an hour I can figure out for
myself all of the information I need." Which he did.
During this time Ludwig Hupfeld of Leipzig, Germany, was the
world's largest maker of automatic musical instruments. From their
factory came a stream of mechanical marvels ranging from home player
pianos to reproducing pianos, from small coin pianos to gigantic Helios
and Pan orchestrions.
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In a photograph taken by the author about five years ago Mr. and
Mrs. DeRoy stand in front of their Symphonia shop in Antwerp.