The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Like most of us who are interested in them, I feel like I have a pretty good notion of the desirability of the various types of cylinder records, which is related to condition, era, type, and of course the artists and selections on them.

But in my years of collecting I've never really gained a sense for the Edison 28000s - classical and light classical and opera, found in the classy dark blue and maroon boxes.

Surely part of this is just a lack of much interest in the material typically found on them...when one is interested, related and peripheral knowledge often tends to organically accumulate.

I've got a lot of them but don't really know what I've "got." Are there certain selections and/or artists that are sought after? Is there a numeric grouping, like the last popular records in the 5000 series, that is desirable due to low production and rarity?

My question is one that I've held for a long time but never got around to asking here, but I saw a small group of them go on ebay recently for what seemed like too much money, which makes me wonder how to know what was so special about those particular records - and what to look for in general when encountering records from that catalog series.

Thanks.

The 28000 series "Concert" cylinders originated during the wax Amberol years. Many of the "better" wax Amberols were later reissued on Blue Amberol. The Blue series started with 28101 and went up to 28290. 28101 through 28203, plus 28209 and 28210 were directly recorded, although a dubbed version of 28196 also exists. The others were dubbed from Diamond Discs.

So far as I know, the only one that's really in demand is 28146, the only Blue Amberol by Leo Slezak. The 4 selections by Florencio Constantino are also desirable, at least for the minor reason that they are announced. I'm sure there are others that are worth mentioning and look forward to other people's comments.

The 28000 series only ever came in blue boxes, as far as I am aware. There are two variations; "Edison" appearing in gold or in white. The maroon boxes were used for the high-end releases on wax Amberol.

The series was over by late 1918, so low production, if any, would have been from lack of interest or sales, not approaching shutdown.

I hope that answers some of your questions. You can find some more information and complete discographies in Alan Sutton's excellent wax and Blue Amberol books.

Hmm, ok. Thanks very much!

I went back and found that auction to which I referred in my first post. The records in it were 28103, 28104, 28105, and 28114 - in great shape and with excellent boxes and matching lids, although none of them are the ones you highlighted - but went for 122 smackers, which seems like a lot to me.

When it comes to classical music (in my opinion) desirability is in the eyes of the buyer. What were the titles of those cylinders and who performed them? For me, I like Pagliacci - Leoncavallo by Caruso, but am not so fond of other titles by him, I like violin pieces depending on who performed them and the titles, plus other specific performances. I am sure that other people feel the same way about their favorites, which makes it difficult to put a finger on... That, plus the fact that most collectors like other popular music and may not like (or are not familiar with) classical music... Personally, I like many different styles of music, but there are titles or genres that don't do much for me... Who knows?

The records in it were 28103, 28104, 28105, and 28114 - in great shape and with excellent boxes and matching lids.

My guess is that the bidders were completists looking to get cylinder(s) missing from their collections.

I just think every Amberola 1, being the...classy...machine, needs at least one drawer full of the classy blue-box cyinders.

Classical music is my very very much preferred music,followed by hot jazz and really good songs, bluegrass and dance tunes from the 20s and early 30s and then to the music from the 50s like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, music from my youth.

Most music from today leaves me cold.

I prefer my Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi etc. To be on CDs and DVDs for many obvious reasons, one of which is that Classical music was written mainly to be enjoyed over a much longer listening time frame and changing discs or records constantly is a big boring distraction.

The cylinders, 78s and DDs I like and have are mainly only from the hot jazz period and a small collection of favorite BAs of things like "Climbing Up the Golden Stairs" and "When You wore a Tulip".

I do have two or three Caruso cylinders from Norman which are nice, all four of the Gems from Pinafore including one of the Nightingale Song, sung beautifully by Vernon Dalhart who is famous for being a country singer but was, in fact, trained to be an opera singer. Also have the Bell Song from Magic Flute.

Blah, blah, blah.

I'm am an opera lover going back to at least 1968, which I listened to on LPs from the San Diego library. Then I started collecting opera and classical on Lps. Now I'm looking for opera on 78s and DDs, and cylinders too. They are hard to find on cylinder! Actually, in the recent Ebay sale of four Concert cylinders, only on of them was opera, namely Cavalleria Rusticana. Two of the others were just songs, and other one was a slow movement from a Haydn string quartet. If anyone has some for sale, shoot me a PM! Marc.

Marc, I have the Solti Das Rheingold lp set.
Do you know if a Solti Walkure was ever released ?

My wife has every cd and dvd Jonas Kaufmann ever released. His Walkure with Jimmy Levine at the Met is unbelievable.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread.
John

Peter, Edison Grand Opera cylinders can get very costly. An example would be ones by Sarah Bernhardt.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... rdt#p85950

Rich Gordon

billybob62 wrote:Marc, I have the Solti Das Rheingold lp set.
Do you know if a Solti Walkure was ever released ?

Solti did release the entire 4 operas of the ring. Many Wagner crazies say this is the best set ever made. Who knows if that is really the case or not, but it is really great. Here is a link to a CD set on Amazon http://a.co/hYtn7yr

Dan