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Cob 1024a is thought to be earlier of these two because of the name label which has the two thin circles. One of each version of cobs 1069, 1083 and 1100 is only found with the two circle name label which was introduced at about the time these cobs were first made. So it is assumed that all of these along with cob #1024 were changed sometime later. Richard Dutton has compared a recording of cob 1024 with his copy of cob 1024a and offered the following comments. “The tune in the recording [1024] is certainly “Men of Harlech” but is a very different arrangement than the one on my copy of the cob [1024a], filled with a lot of flourishes and grace notes beginning after about the first quarter or first third of the tune. The version on mine is a more straightforward version, with none of the same kind of embellishment, but it reminds me of cob #124, “The Marseillaise Hymn”, in that it seems to have too much tune on it for the length of a 20-note cob; you have to crank it very slowly or it seems to race very quickly for a march. I haven't compared them note for note, but I think my copy [1024a] includes a portion of the tune played through twice, unlike [the other] copy [1024]. This might account for why the Autophone Company issued an alternate version (one that would sound all right even on a machine that didn't have great pneumatic capacity) …”

It also makes sense that the more crowded arrangement of the tune on cob 1024a would not have the grace notes and embellishments because these notes would all run together and overlap with the tune.