4 minute wax cylinder records

[phonogfp]

George your date seems right. What would be interesting though is how long after the introduction of the titled end molded cylinder though did they still produce non titled, flat end Gold Moulded records? If you read the production note sheet above from October of 1904, they were making both titled, and non titled, moulded cylinders at this time.

It's not really "my date," but the date the announcement appeared in The Edison Phonograph Monthly. Naturally, there would be a transitional period where the flat ends and the titled ends would be manufactured simultaneously until existing inventories were cleared and older moulds were replaced. There's no way of knowing that unless an internal document surfaces stating that the last of the older non-titled moulds had been taken out of service.

George P.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

The celluloid saga is often presented to make Edison seem like a stubborn old coot, who was too pig headed to realize that celluloid was the future. And in some ways he was, but the celluloid suit was particularly galling to the company. they had been working on celluloid for years, realizing that it was the ideal medium. The judge negated the Edison suit and his judgement made the rather bizarre decision that laboratory experiments constituted previous commercial use! Had I been Frank Dyer, the head of the Edison legal dept, I'd have had conniptions right there in the courtroom.
And there was a commercial reason for the continued use of wax. edisonphonoworks in his post mentions the spinning process of moulding. From what I've read, it was semi-automaitic: one person working the machine could crank out an amazingly high number of records per given period of time. And in the halcyon days of 1904-08 Edison was producing tens of thousands of records per title a month. By contrast the celluloid process was much slower and took two men per press. If one reads the Edison Phonograph Monthly the demand for the Blue Amberol took the company by surprise and it wasn't until April or May of 1913 that they could ship orders as received. ( Which must have really annoyed the dealers. This syndrome was rather a thing with the National Phonograph Co. They would announce a product , exhort the dealers to get their orders in , and then not be able to supply the demand for months. The cygnet horn and the Amberola I were two of the most egregious examples of that little problem)
Jim

[edisonplayer]

I didn't think about Edison being awarded the celluloid patent.Being bullheaded as he was Edison sued Lambert He wanted to drive the competition out of business.Finally,after complaints about the wax Amberol not holding up and the breakage problem which affected Edison's sales he finally gave in and bought the celluloid rights from Phillpot.He had to have the house fall on him,so to speak.edisonplayer