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Here is the link to the discography....

http://www.archeophone.org/Berliner5inch/

http://www.archeophone.org/Berliner5inc ... er-077.php contains a link to a brief sound-clip. The sound is surprisingly good, with less surface noise than many of the later seven-inch records. From the German text it appears that the 'Hohenfriedberger Marsch' dates from the eighteenth century and is sometimes attributed to King Friedrich II of Prussia (Frederick the Great).

Oliver Mundy.

Thanks for all the great info! Yes, copies of this disc will be available after I catch up on current orders and figure out how to get the thickness consistent. At 100rpms, inconsistent thickness results in skating. This is a problem that has also been an issue with Diamond Discs...

Here's a copy playing side-by-side with the original. The condition and sound quality are really amazing, especially compared to the 7" shellac discs.

https://youtu.be/m7sk2G7wBYo

That is fantastic. Quite an amazing sound compared to other 5 inch Berliners that I have heard.

Does anyone have an early Berliner puzzle disc that they would consider letting Don duplicate? I'm sure everyone would appreciate it...

This is a hard rubber pressing in wonderful condition of QI 458 Hohenfriedberger Marsch, a recording from 1890, however a later pressing of 1891/92, recognizable by the stamped catalogue number "77" to the left of the spindle hole. Here is a recent article about the first commercial 5", or rather 4.92 inches, Berliner disc records of 1890: https://www.cylinder.de/deeplink_resour ... iner2.html

Thank you for the great info. Regarding the material the disc is made of, I don't doubt the accuracy of the article but it does raise some questions. The disc feels like the same material Blue Amberol cylinders are made of, it's slightly flexible but not compressible. When discussing pre-WWII rubber, I assume it to be latex, which is hardened (vulcanized) with sulfur. Any quantity of sulfur will deactivate the platinum catalyst in the silicone used to make the mold. Since this did not happen, it appears no sulfur is present in the disc.
So I wonder what kind of rubber it was made of?

donniej wrote:When discussing pre-WWII rubber, I assume it to be latex, which is hardened (vulcanized) with sulfur. Any quantity of sulfur will deactivate the platinum catalyst in the silicone used to make the mold. Since this did not happen, it appears no sulfur is present in the disc.
So I wonder what kind of rubber it was made of?

That's a valid question. There was no hard rubber without sulfur content. In preparation of the article, to determine the material, I had obtained samples of more than a dozen Berliner 5" discs from all production periods and had them examined with the FTIR spectrometer. In addition, burning and smell tests were carried out. The result was very clear. All black discs were made of hard rubber, the only light yellow disc examined was celluloid. Furthermore, many of the almost three hundred (formerly) black discs I inspected showed the typical phenomenon of hard rubber: exposure to sunlight had turned them brown - in all shades from dark brown to milky coffee brown.

The quality of the hard rubber used as pressing material is high and the German company contracted at that time was experienced in the work with this material. The proportion of free sulfur in hard rubber was kept low by appropriate vulcanization time and temperature, because otherwise the desired physical parameters of the rubber would be changed by post-cross-linking. I asked an expert for hard rubber about your question and his reply was: Since it is very old hard rubber, the free sulphur was bound as far as possible in the course of aging and therefore no longer reacts with the platinum catalyst. However, there is a certain risk and he would recommend the use of condensation cross-linking silicone.

Starkton wrote:

donniej wrote:When discussing pre-WWII rubber, I assume it to be latex, which is hardened (vulcanized) with sulfur. Any quantity of sulfur will deactivate the platinum catalyst in the silicone used to make the mold. Since this did not happen, it appears no sulfur is present in the disc.
So I wonder what kind of rubber it was made of?

That's a valid question. There was no hard rubber without sulfur content. In preparation of the article, to determine the material, I had obtained samples of more than a dozen Berliner 5" discs from all production periods and had them examined with the FTIR spectrometer. In addition, burning and smell tests were carried out. The result was very clear. All black discs were made of hard rubber, the only light yellow disc examined was celluloid. Furthermore, many of the almost three hundred (formerly) black discs I inspected showed the typical phenomenon of hard rubber: exposure to sunlight had turned them brown - in all shades from dark brown to milky coffee brown.

The quality of the hard rubber used as pressing material is high and the German company contracted at that time was experienced in the work with this material. The proportion of free sulfur in hard rubber was kept low by appropriate vulcanization time and temperature, because otherwise the desired physical parameters of the rubber would be changed by post-cross-linking. I asked an expert for hard rubber about your question and his reply was: Since it is very old hard rubber, the free sulphur was bound as far as possible in the course of aging and therefore no longer reacts with the platinum catalyst. However, there is a certain risk and he would recommend the use of condensation cross-linking silicone.

That's exactly what I was thinking, that any free sulphur would have reacted long ago and become bound into the crosslinks. Thanks heavens Berliner ebonite material doesn't seem to revert (depolymerise, and/or the crosslinks decompose) like most ordinary natural rubber moulded goods do.

Hi Norman,
Will you be at the Wayne show this Fall? If so then I'll bring them with me, to avoid shipping costs.

Don-

WDC wrote:Fantastic to see that a collector with a decent 5" record opened up to this.

As far as I can make out the title it is "Hohenfriedberger", which would usually relate to a march.

Please count me in for 3 copies.