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Has anyone seen this Edison Corp stamp before? Found it on an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder #2201 Dixie Days.

Rich Gordon

Yes, it's a British copyright fee stamp.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27733&hilit=+copyright

Thanks for the info.

Rich Gordon

That's a copyright royalies stamp I've not come across before.
They were introduced in England July 1912, and I'd imagine here in Australia a short time later.
I've only got a few BA boxes with similar stamps on them, but quite a few on pianola rolls, and thousands on disc records.
Many include the monetary value of the royality tax paid, but the ink colour they were printed in was also used to indicate different amounts, so it'd be interesting to know if these Edison stamps were printed in different colours too.

Thanks for posting this one. I'll be on the look out for one now

Looked through some more cylinders today and found this tax stamp. Any ideas?

Rich Gordon

Just found what it is. The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society began as Mecolico, the Mechanical Copyright Licenses Company, which was founded in 1910 in anticipation of the Copyright Act of 1911. Mecolico licensed the mechanical rights within musical works and merged with the Copyright Protection Society in 1924

Rich Gordon

I bought many of my cylinders when I lived in the UK many years ago. Most of them have the licence label. Here is a sample.
On UK discs, the stamp was applied to the record label.

rgordon939 wrote:Looked through some more cylinders today and found this tax stamp. Any ideas?

Rich Gordon

That's the same stamp that's on the few I have. A lot of mine however are on the bottom of the box rather than the side.
It's very possible that many of my boxes had them but have fallen off over the years.
I don't have any with double stamps on them.
Perhaps they ran out of 1 1/2d stamps that day?

Believe it or not but record tax stamps are collected and some can be very sought after and valuable

https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.p ... 2&start=50

Governor Flyball wrote:I bought many of my cylinders when I lived in the UK many years ago. Most of them have the licence label. Here is a sample.
On UK discs, the stamp was applied to the record label.

I'm surprised we don't see more of these stamps in the US. I have over 1000 BAs and never seen the stamp before.