old punch card from Radio City Music Hall

[BruceH]

Since that card is unused, it wouldn't have much to talk about. "I came out the printers, dripping wet with ink and then, as soon as I was barely dry, they put me in a box with a load of others and I've been there ever since. Now you're all staring at me!"

More seriously, it's interesting that the cards were custom printed with the record layout - I've not seen that before. It seems unlikely that Radio City were big enough users to do that for themselves so I'm wondering if this was a card produced by a bureau service (i.e. 'outsourced' payroll in the modern parlance)?

In which case, Radio City wouldn't have had a computer of their own, only 'dumb', electro-mechanical card punch machines. Payroll staff would punch the cards with the employee's details and at the end of the day or week they'd be sent off to the bureau service for processing. The record layout was printed on as a reminder to the typists so they could easily see if they'd gone wrong.