Electrophone - the first release

[52089]

There has been a bit of renewed interest on Electrophone cylinder records on this board lately. Electrophone records were produced by Dennis Valente (of APSCO) and Peter Dilg. Dennis and his wife Patti used to have an antique phonograph retail store in Floral Park, NY and I was a frequent visitor and customer.

Anyway, one day Patti told me that they had started making cylinder records and they had made a few copies of a couple of titles. She also told me that they would soon be changing the packaging and labels on their boxes, and I should strongly consider buying at least one of their early efforts.

I am attaching pictures of what I am quite sure is the very first Electrophone release. This is "Crazy Rhythm", played by Vince Giordano's Nighthawks, recorded probably around 1982 or 83. This is the very early box label that was soon changed. Note that all the identifying information for the record is handwritten (and that "Rhythm" is misspelled.) These wax records were all released on Miller-Morris blanks. Later releases came out on a plastic/resin material in various colors. Some of those have held up better than other. To the best of my knowledge, this is their first release. A small strobe disk was included with the record.

If someone knows of an Electrophone discography, I would be grateful for more info.

[donniej]

Thank you for sharing a fun piece of history. Do you have any guesses as to when and why they stopped making cylinders?

[52089]

Thank you for sharing a fun piece of history. Do you have any guesses as to when and why they stopped making cylinders?

It's only a guess, but I would think it's likely that cylinder production stopped when they closed the store in Floral Park and moved upstate sometime in the 1980s. Peter Dilg attends the Wayne show regularly - perhaps you could ask him?

[Victrolacollector]

Thank you for sharing. Back in the 1990’s, I had a couple of their black resin issues. One was Yankee Doodle by Billy Murray and the other was the Advertising Record by Len Spencer. It was around 1995 and Antique Phonographs supply Co. had them in their catalog, but no copies available. Patti gave me the number to Peter Dilg and he sold me those two copies. The Yankee Doodle one wore out quick. The Advertising record held up, I sold it and ended buying a copy of the record from Vulcan Cylinder Company in the U.K. since I wanted a better improved copy.

Just to think that the Electrophones have reached the age of collectability. I would think that the early wax copies would be scarce and highly collectible.

I would also be intestested in seeing a discography.

[Governor Flyball]

I recall buying a bunch of Miller Morris brown cylinder blanks directly from Paul Morris and Duncan Miller in 1984 from a CLPS show. I broke a couple but the rest are intact. Miller and Morris re-issued some early Edison moulded cylinders such as George W Johnson's 1902 The Laughing Coon and a British Edison of Billy Williams singing Tickle Me Timothy. They were on a black wax. The chemical composition caused them to oxidize and they didn't wear very well.

[JayandtheImp]

I still have a couple of Electrophone cylinders I bought back in the 1990s.
One is Turn Up The Heat, and the other is Ragtime Dance.