The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Okay, I've got one for ya! I have a DD, with two different labels. One side of the disc, the label matches the recording, where as the other side does not.

51515-R Lonesome Road Blues is correct.

50455-L Ellis March is incorect. Recording is Aplalaican Blues.

The label is not a copy, but an actual label, that looked like it was put on by mistake, during production. Did this sort of thing happen a lot at the Edison Lab's?

Paul

I have a number of those, I think its mostly the fact that the labels easily came off in damper conditions and when people get the records they try to re-glue them, often ending up on the wrong side. I have one of a hawaiian record on the back side of Lucky Lindy, which it certainly isn't.

Paul,

I have a black etched label DD 82169, Second Rhapsodie Part 1 and 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The etched labels are different on both sides.

Paal.

Somewhere in my collection, the key word being "somewhere" I have a DD that part of the paper label is missing exposing a paper label below that is different than the recording i.e. the correct label is over an incorrect one.

I wonder when Edison affixed the labels to the discs: Pre stamp, at stamp, or post stamp? If it was pre-stamp, one could easily see how such findings could happen.

larryh wrote:I have a number of those, I think its mostly the fact that the labels easily came off in damper conditions and when people get the records they try to re-glue them, often ending up on the wrong side. I have one of a hawaiian record on the back side of Lucky Lindy, which it certainly isn't.

Brad wrote:Somewhere in my collection, the key word being "somewhere" I have a DD that part of the paper label is missing exposing a paper label below that is different than the recording i.e. the correct label is over an incorrect one.

I wonder when Edison affixed the labels to the discs: Pre stamp, at stamp, or post stamp? If it was pre-stamp, one could easily see how such findings could happen.

I would be more inclined to believe that in both the above cases, the labels were affixed incorrectly during the manufacturing process. In the case of Brad's example, it was probably easier to affix a new label on top of the old one than to scrape the disc clean and reglue a new label.

I've seen (and own) examples like both above cases and they always looked like they were quite professionally done. Interestingly I just stumbled across one in the bunch of records I brought from the US with the same "L" side paper label on both sides of the disc. Someone had handwritten very carefully the correct "R" side title in the white space on the label years ago.

On the etched labels, it was not uncommon for two different label styles to
appear on one disc pressed about the time of the introduction of the new label. I have several of these in my collection.
On paper labels, it was found that pressing the Diamond Disc with the label attached turned the paper brown [because of the long pressing cycle]. As a
result, there was a piece of paper, unprinted, pressed into the disc, and the catalogue number and side [for instance, 50078-L] was stamped into the label area for later indexing when the final label was glued on later. I have seen
whole stacks of these, with all the labels off, needing some careful re-attaching.
I'll look up the numbers you need, and give you the proper titles, artists, etc. next time I'm able to log on. Bob Ault

Disc 51515 has on the other side, Blue Ridge Blues (Carson), performed by the same artists as Lonesome Road Blues (Austin-Mills)--The Blue Ridge Duo, made up of Gene Austin [later of Victor crooner fame---"My Blue Heaven" was his biggest hit] and George Reneau.
Disc 50455 just for information, has the Ellis March played by the Ford Hawaiians coupled with One, Two, Three, Four - medley played by the Waikiki Hawaiian Orchestra, which I believe was led by Frank Ferera.

hillndalefan wrote:On the etched labels, it was not uncommon for two different label styles to
appear on one disc pressed about the time of the introduction of the new label. I have several of these in my collection.
On paper labels, it was found that pressing the Diamond Disc with the label attached turned the paper brown [because of the long pressing cycle]. As a
result, there was a piece of paper, unprinted, pressed into the disc

I've seen one of these where an etched label master was used for pressing- the image was visible in the plain paper.

This is one I have.