Amberol ad, Feb. 1911

[Lenoirstreetguy]

Here's another of the " Four and half minutes by the clock" Amberol ads. This one touts the special series of records that the company added as a sweetener with the conversion kit. They were annoyed that there were so still many un-Amberolized machines and came up with the Special list to encourage more conversions.
I don't think this one is the same as the last one I posted.
Jim

[barnettrp21122]

Such hype, even in the early days of audio recording! How many times since have enthusiasts thought they have "reached the limit of pleasure in home entertainment!"
I always enjoy your scans. Please keep posting!
Bob

[Edisone]

Too bad Edison didn't make these out of better material from the start, although celluloid has its own problems today (shrinkage causing cracks and flutter, mostly) . A lot of great music was recorded on Amberols, and only some was reissued when the Blue Amberols came out.

I have wondered if the 4 & ½ minute records could have been equally good NINE minute records. When you cut the groove & stylus size in half, you should be able to reduce the speed by half & keep the same high quality. If Edison had used celluloid & 80rpm from 1908 on, plus offering high-class long-playing selections, it might have made a real impact & kept many cylinder customers from buying Victrolas. Or maybe not, but it's fun to speculate. I'd like to hear some experiments with 200 tpi, 80rpm cylinder recording.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

The National Phonograph Company really did cut off it's own nose to spite it's face by not throwing in the towel and buying the rights to celluloid much earlier than they did. They were hissy because they felt that they had been wronged in 1902 when they lost that court battle with Lambert, I believe. By the time they did capitulate...summer of 1911...the cylinder business had suffered badly from the delicate nature of the wax Amberol.
They did in fact work on an eight minute cylinder, but it was huge: like a kinetophone cylinder. There was a series of recordings made but they decided not to introduce them to the market. Probably wise. About this time( from mid summer) they were madly working on the kinetophone , the Blue Amberol and the disc machine which they planned on having ready in 1911 by the end of the year. Didn't happen.They were approximately a year behind where they wanted to be when samples of the first Diamond Disc Machines went out to the jobbers and major dealers at the end of 1912.
I've puzzled about the reluctance to switch to celluloid but I think I posted once before that when I read the description of the wax moulding process it helps explain it...slightly. The moulding process was semi-automatic. One operator could turn out umpty ump cylinders per hour, which of course kept the unit price down. The Blues required two operators per press and was significantly slower. So to keep the same output the unit cost was of course higher. But again it was an a "apples and oranges thing": while they lost on the labour costs they gained on the packaging costs ( cheaper) and the shipping costs: no discount for breakage as with the wax records.
Jim