CYLINDER RECORD CABINET?

[Phonotom]

I saw this cabinet advertised for sale as an Edison Cylinder record cabinet. It looks to be Mahogany? The drawers measure 4 ¼" deep which mean that probably the boxes would not fit with the records in them as I measured a typical brown wax cylinder and it measures 4 ¼" tall without the box. The cabinet measures 43" tall. Are the Concert cylinders a little shorter?? Please give me your thoughts. Thanks in advance. He is asking 400.00 for it. Tom

[CharliePhono]

I am far from deeply knowledgeable about these cabinets, and others will weigh in with expert opinions, but did the seller provide you with a picture of the inside of the drawers? The cabinets I have seen have individual pegs within the drawers to place the cylinders on. I also don't think the cabinets were designed to hold the records in their boxes.

[gramophoneshane]

I have no experience with cylinder record cabinets as we don't see them here in Australia, but we do have Columbia records, and they tend to be nearly ⅛" shorter than Edisons.
So my uneducated guess is that's it's probably a Columbia cabinet, and you may find Edison records a very tight squeeze.
I don't own any Concert size cylinders, so no idea what length/height they are.
It's hard to be sure from the pictures, but it does appear (to me) to be mahogany, so perhaps it was made for a BM Graphophone or some other mahogany cased machine?

But as Charlie mentioned above, I think the drawer interiors will be the deciding factor on whether this is indeed a cylinder cabinet.
A shot of the unfinished inside surface of a drawer front may also help determine whether it's mahogany or oak as well.

[Phonotom]

I asked the seller for more pictures and these are what he sent. Is it possible that this is for concert size cylinders because of the number of drawers it has? Also what is the length of Columbia and Edison concert cylinders? Can anyone give me an idea on the wood type now that I have more pictures? Thanks for your replies. Tom

[FellowCollector]

Edison Concert cylinders are 4 ¼" tall. I believe Columbia Grand cylinders are about the same.

Doug

[52089]

IMHO that is not a cylinder record cabinet. There is no evidence of posts, nor of holes for screwed-in clips. I'm not sure what it's actually for, but I'm reasonably certain it was not made for cylinder records.

[Phonotom]

Did the concert cylinder record cabinets have pegs in them?? Does anybody have a cabinet for concert cylinders that can answer this? Tom

[gramophoneshane]

Looking at what I see of the drawer front and the top rail at the back, I'm starting to think it may be oak.
The bottom of the drawers don't seem to indicate pegs were ever used, and being finished I'm leaning towards it being a sheet music cabinet.
That's purely a guess though.

Of course, the inside of the drawer may have been refinished at some point, and it may have had cardboard pegs glued to the bottom.
I'm sure someone here will have the true answer though.

[Shawn]

Here is some solid data, and an opinion.

The data:

• I've measured all of my cylinder cabinets. They all have at least 4 ¾" clearance from bottom of the drawer to the top of the front rail.
  All are around 35" - 38" tall.
  All have 5 or 6 drawers.

The opinion

• At 43" tall, with 7 drawers at 4 ¼" clearance it would seem to be a lingerie cabinet, rather than a cylinder cabinet.

Hope the data helps.

Shawn

[JerryVan]

If the drawers would hold cylinders in their cartons, I could almost think it may be a cylinder cabinet. But, I can't believe anybody would make a cylinder cabinet that would allow cylinders to move around freely, with no carton to protect them and with no pegs to keep them from bashing into each other.

Being (what I believe to be) an Eastlake style, it would probably be walnut. I've never seen in a cylinder cabinet in walnut. Not that I've seen everything of course...