Edison Cylinder Questions

Discussions on Records, Recording, & Artists
Post Reply
User avatar
SonnyPhono
Victor III
Posts: 984
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:59 am
Personal Text: Drawing a blank...
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Edison Cylinder Questions

Post by SonnyPhono »

I bought a large collection of Edison cylinders awhile back and haven't been able to find much reference to a couple of them.

First, a speech by Taft. It is #10003 and is titled, "The Philippines". I looked on the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project website and there wasn't a reference to this recording. Can anyone provide any information on how many of these were made or if it is a rare cylinder in comparison to other speeches?

I also have #1652, "Patrick Henry's Speech" by Humphrey. I have heard of a couple title by Humphrey that are desirable but haven't heard much about this one. It is interesting in my opinion, but any other information on this one would be appreciated.

Thanks for the help!

hillndalefan
Victor I
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 4:51 pm
Location: western Missouri

Re: Edison Cylinder Questions

Post by hillndalefan »

The William Howard Taft recording, I suspect [but I don't have my references available right now] is from the 1908 campaign series of cylinders Edison made. There were several by him, and several by his opponent, Wm. Jennings Bryan.
The Harry E. Humphrey recording is from the School series, sold with the Edison School Phonograph--an all metal version of the Edison Opera or later Concert Phonograph. Humphrey did historical orations and dictation exercises on numbers 1651 through 1686, and Edward Meeker did mathematics problems on numbers 1687 through 1710. While I'm not overly interested in the math records, I've always hoped to find the Humphrey historical speech series. :ugeek: Bob Ault

Post Reply