Mystery American cylinder brand

[Dulcetto]

Hello all ,
I recently picked up a boxfull of brown wax cylinders , many of which are housed in the plain style of boxes ( without box label ) that were in common usage around 1895 - 1898 in USA.
The records were originally sold new here in England as evidenced by retailer's own labels applied to the lids of the boxes. One of the records has survived with its correct printed record slip --- see pictures. However, it is not Columbia or Edison and there is no mention of a company name on either the printed slip or given in the spoken announcement. I wonder if any knowledgeable members can shed any light as to which company made these ? The group of cylinders also contains examples of Columbia records housed in the early type Columbia boxes which have a label showing Columbia holding a shield so those would date to around 1898 I guess Thanks in advance.

[gramophoneshane]

I wonder if a photo of the spiral core might help identify it?

Is there any sort of announcement at the start of the cylinders?

I guess if there is, then there isn't a company name included, but perhaps the announcers voice is recognisable as someone commonly used by Edison or Columbia.
If there is no announcement at all, then perhaps it's a pirate copy made using a commercial blank and a pantograph, and the introduction shaved off the original.
Apparently that was quite a big problem during the 1890s.

[rgordon939]

Here are some general guidelines for identifying brown wax cylinders.

Rich Gordon

[AmberolaAndy]

I wonder is the cylinder box is particular to the store it was sold at? Wonder if it’s one of those local record companies that are really rare to find. (Not that brown wax in itself isn’t really rare to find in my experience)

[Dulcetto]

Thank you gentlemen for your inputs , but I think you have all rather missed the point of my enquiry. In my original post I did say that there is a spoken announcement , but there is no mention of a company name. The record slip has catalogue number 701 but that is neither an Edison nor Columbia number for a song by Ed M Favor , so must be another brand. I should explain the situation in the UK when the record was sold new. In the 1890's in UK , the only company that had control of the British market was Edison - Bell , set up in 1892 and all phonograph products legally sold in Britain had to be through them or their agents. The records sold through Edison - Bell usually contained some reference to either Edison - Bell or London as the location of recording. It actually wasn't until 1898 in UK that cylinder phonographs could be purchased outright -- before then they could only be hired or rented -- unless bought on the black market. There were of course illegal imports of machines and records from America that were sold by some enterprising retailers -- the record I have pictured would seem to be an example of this practice -- note that the retailer was located in Liverpool England , which is the British shipping port where most American goods came into UK - still the same today.
The artist Ed M Favor is of course American , so the record is of American origin and the plain box is of the precise style that was used by record companies in the US during the mid to late 1890's . My own guess is that the record dates to around the 1898 mark , as other records found with it are Columbia cylinders of the same time frame ( as I mentioned in my original post ) spoken announcements on those saying " ... for Columbia Phonograph company of New York and Paris " -- in other words, soon after Columbia had opened their Paris branch but before they had opened their London branch. I was hoping that some members in USA may recognize the " record slip " and its catalogue number and therefore would be able to associate it with a particular brand. I must ask John Levin -- he may well be the best person to ask on this . Regards form England Dulcetto

[gramophoneshane]

Does the spiral pattern inside the cylinder match those used by Edison or Columbia at the time?
As I stated, there's a good chance it's a pirated cylinder recorded on bought blanks using a pantograph.
I think the fact there's no mention of a company name on the cylinder, it's box or the paper slip is a pretty good indication they weren't interested in letting the buyer know who made them.
I think that's pretty unusual, even for a small time legitimate record manufacturer.
It's not unusual though, for early cylinder announcements to only include the title and artist, as the chart Rich supplied shows.

Is it possible to upload a recording of the introduction?
Someone may recognise who is speaking, or possibly detect an accent that may indicate what part of America the recording was made.

[recordmaker]

An announcement without any company name is fairly unusual, pantograph copies could be duplicated without copying the announcement by setting the copy stylus a little into the track but an announcement with no company is tricky to add and time consuming to do.
A lot of tricks were run later by the international company also based in Liverpool when adding new announcement to pirated masters derived from Edison and used to make molds and celluloid cylinders for UK sales.

it suggests the non branded announcement is original which could men a USA recording made only for export to dealers or a dealer in the UK.

it is certainly interesting

[Dulcetto]

Thanks recordmaker for your thoughts , that's a good theory that the record may have been made specifically for export to UK , so that Edison - Bell would not know its origins. I was hoping that the catalogue no. 701 would be a trigger to someone as presumably that number must have appeared on some sort of sales list or catalogue , otherwise why bother assigning a number. I will check too the spiral core pattern as gramophoneshane has suggested , that too may lead to a clue. There were several of these cylinders in the lot , with identical boxes and lid retailer labels but this is the only one where the record slip has survived with it. I will get around to compiling a list of the other titles , that too may help identification possibly. I also appreciate that records of that period do not always contain a company name in the spoken announcements -- for example records from the Consolidated Co. New York , although their record slips if survived with the record are fairly distinctive .Thank you gentlemen ! Regards Dulcetto

[WDC]

Actually, I have found brown wax cylinders without a company announcement to be fairly common and I have lots of examples for that. Even Edison would not come with a company name for a short period during the late 1890's.

Given the look of the cylinder and its shape of inner spirals and the paper slip, I would suggest that this one was made by US Phonograph Co.

Another factor of high importance is the recording speed! Unfortunately it is so often not even mentioned, yet along with other characteristics, it is a potential indicator to in- or exclude certain manufacturers.

On top of that, the recording quality can be yet another indicator for its vintage. Most pre-1897 cylinders tend to have different sound characteristics than later ones.

[gramophoneshane]

Given the look of the cylinder and its shape of inner spirals and the paper slip, I would suggest that this one was made by US Phonograph Co.

Mystery solved I think.
Ben Bolt is listed on page 90 of the US Phonograph Co catalogue at the link below, but unfortunately they don't assign record numbers in it, so I guess they must have either assigned record numbers after this catalogue was printed, or they thought it wasn't necessary to include them in a customer catalogue and the retailer looked up the number for orders or to find inventory?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_ ... ._1894.jpg