"Universal cut" records (aka Emerson Records)

[pughphonos]

Thanks, Bill. I think I'll just have to wait for the next Nauck's auction and bid on what he has listed under verticals. I'm not having any luck on my own finding the non-Pathé sapphire verticals. I do appreciate the advice given above about Rex, Keen-o-phone, etc., but I'm very unlikley to find them even in the record bins of my local antique record guy.

Ralph

[Wolfe]

Interesting, but I wouldn't say all. At least, all of the blue label vertical-cut Okeh's that I do own have grooves identical to the Pathés and play perfectly with a standard sapphire ball needle. Some of the other vertical-cut brands such as Aeolian Vocalion and Sonora that were meant to be played with steel needles had finer grooves that cannot be tracked well with a sapphire needle. The earliest Okeh's that I know of cut for steel needles were lateral and had identical blue labels except they were marked "Lateral" in big letters.

I could well be wrong. It it just seemed to me that the handful of vertical Okeh's I own were needle cut records seeing as they (unlike sapphire records) track well on my turntable using a needle, I've never tried them on an antique phono. I'll have to dig them out again and inspect them more closely.

[Phototone]

The "universal cut" Emersons were for sure designed to be played with a steel needle. It has been remarked that the "universal" cut, meant that they didn't sound good played either as laterals, or hill-and-dale. Emerson did make plenty of standard lateral-cut 78's too. These were of course a year or 2 later than the odd "universal cut" ones.

[pughphonos]

Thanks, Phototone. I love the contemporary wisecrack about Emerson "universals" meaning that they sounded equally bad when played back either laterally or vertically! Reminds me of how the British came up with the term "Damberol" for the Edison Blue Amberols once they became available again "over there" following WWI. These things remind us that the acoustical phonograph world was indeed a wild and woolly place, with plenty of ingenious inventions--AND plenty of mechanical mistakes. The contemporary advertising literature for these products of course alleged that every last machine, every last record was perfectly wonderful--and if any problems were found it was because the owners had messed up something at home. I of course find it humorous when, a century later, some hobbyists are so ready to swallow the old advertising literature "hook, line and sinker" and assume that all problems are the result of poor operation--when, in fact some machines and records were just duds from the get-go and aren't any better a century later.

I love being nostalgic about the past. But there is no era, past or present, that does not require a heavy dose of realism and skepticism going in. As Joan Rivers (my icon) would say, "Can we be adults here?"

Final thought. If one really wanted to see the fur fly around here, one could post a topic under the title "List all those brands/makes of acoustical phonographs/records that you find are really DUDS." Then sit back and watch the realists and idealists have at it. But not ME; especially not at Christmastime. God rest ye merry, gentlemen.