The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Help! I need ideas. I have been collecting for a very long time and have several hundred cylinders in multiple cabinets. i started keeping track of the the numbers and titles on the computer but got lax with that for a while. I am currently going through them to make sure I have them on the list. I have the list broken down into type GM. BA Ind etc.
I have not figured out a way to arrange them so I can easily find each one when I want to play it. Anyone have any suggestions. How have you organized your cylinder collection? Thanks, Jan

Someone here had a wine rack type cylinder cabinet that looked like it would have worked quite well for this.

My most played records are stored in the drawers of my Amberola 1A. I have essentially reserved 2 drawers for Blue Amberols, 1 drawer for other 4M records, and 1 drawer for 2M records.

The bulk of my cylinders is in cabinets with each drawer labeled with a record type and number range, e.g., "Blue Amberol 1501-1999". The cabinets are modern, not made for cylinders, and therefore don't have pegs, which means that there's no easy way to find a specific cylinder within a drawer.

I've thought about putting them in order like that but when a new group is added or some are removed everything would need to be rearranged. My other idea is to label each cabinet, Make a list of cylinders by title alphabetically and list cabinet and drawer or shelf. That would at least narrow the search down. When adding a cylinder or removing one, I can just update the list. Ideas?

When you have large quantities of cylinders, solutions like the wine rack are not practical, unless you find aesthetic to live surrounded by wine racks. I like to sort my collections thematically, rather than by serial number, so I put my cylinders in boxes that fit about 24 each, and label outside the box to indicate what kind of music is inside, like "Billy Murray". This allows me to reach what I am looking for without spending the whole week. I pile the boxes in shelves in the garage, as they are not nice to look at.

I found the "Wine Rack" type cabinet I was thinking of:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37041&p=224034&hilit=cylinder+cabinet#p224034

Something like this seems a really good solution.

Well if the cylinders are accurately listed,
they can be identified with a location code
specifying which box, drawer, or shelf where they are
located.

Then to locate the exact cylinder in any of those
general locations, regular cartesian coordinates
can be used in the form of (x,y)

Where "x" is horizontal axis, and "y" is the vertical
axis. Since cylinder record boxes group together
in boxes or on shelves generally in such a way that
one axis gets skewed at an angle, you can draw a little
map reminding yourself of that fact.

The "x" axis can be normal straight parallel lines
lined up with the front edge of the drawer or box.
The "y" axis can then be lines which are skewed
at an angle taking into account the way the columns
of boxes are oriented.

Such a scheme might look something like
this BA 1655 Darky School Days, Box 8, (12,4)

That would mean that for a great laugh listening to
that cylinder, you'd go find box 8, and then count
12 cylinders from the front-left corner of box 8
and then up the 12th skewed vertical column 4 cylinders.

The nice thing about this organization scheme is that
it's open ended. Cylinders can be added without
rearranging anything.

Drawers with pegs, of course, would not need the
skewed "y" coordinate.

At one time I had all of my cylinders organized this
way. That was a long time ago, many moves ago, and
at this time they are no longer organized at all.

(But Darky School Days is easy to find and play...)
Just an added note: I forget what the real number
of that BA cylinder is, so the one in the example is
not it.

My Wax 2 and 4 min records are on the shelf with some of my machines since I Don’t have too many of those. And my celluloid records which I have a lot more of are in a little cupboard with one shelf for Blue Amberols, one shelf for 4 minute indestructibles, and one shelf for 2 minute indestructibles.

Cylinders are supposed to be organized?? Actually mine were for a few years, but buying more cylinders and cabinets plus a cross country move messed that up. I used a master list sorted by type and number and added the location which consisted of the cabinet, drawer and location within the drawer.

Jim

I think this is what I'm going to do.