Anyone Else Hate To Toss Out Moldy Black Wax Cylinders?

[FellowCollector]

I sure do. I'll bet that I have at least a couple of hundred Edison and Columbia black wax cylinders with at least 50% of the surface having mold long before they became my possession and it sure is tough to toss them! My wife will find them in a large box and tell me "So, what are you doing with these? They look like junk...why are you keeping them?". Usually, to appease her I pick up the box and move it somewhere else until she finds it again maybe 6 months later! It's such a shame to toss them when I can see some playable grooves left. You know what I mean? The other day I took one out of the box and tried using one of the Magic Eraser sponges on it! Ha! Lotsa luck right? It cleaned the cylinder alright...and took the grooves with it! I've tried almost everything that is available at local stores to make the cylinders feel a little better but in the end I know I will heave a sigh and just toss 'em out. What a shame. All those long ago recorded sounds gone forever.

[52089]

The black ones don't hurt as much to toss unless they're unusually rare. The black cylinders were mass produced in fairly reasonable quantities and various sources have been able to preserve digital copies of nearly all of them.

On the other hand, brown wax records break my heart when they're moldy and unplayable. It's not at all unusual that throwing out a brown wax cylinder means something is truly gone forever!

[FellowCollector]

For sure...the brown wax ones as well! In my case, however, most of my black wax cylinders that are moldy are the early flat ended Edison and Columbia black wax issues which create more difficulty determining content than the more common later beveled ended ones. Some of these early flat ended black wax cylinders were made from brown wax masters and are thereby tough to toss out. The later bevel end issues I have much less of a problem tossing. I've found that the earlier brown wax cylinders that look pretty moldy can actually be played through with lesser sound degradation relative to the later (harder surface) black wax.

[ambrola]

I don't mind tossing molded black wax, but not the brown wax. They can be shaved and used to record on. Columbia's seem to be softer and easier to shave. I would never throw a brown wax cylinder away. As a matter of fact, I will pay for molded brown wax.

[edisonplayer]

A few years ago an elderly friend of mine gave me a group of Columbia brown wax cylinders that were in boxes.They were wrapped in cotton,but,unfortunately,they were moldy,and the case they were in was stored in a damp place.The records reeked,and I threw them out.But,I kept the boxes.edisonplayer

[edisonphonoworks]

The Edison black wax can be recycled to make four minute blanks. The Black Columbia records can be shaved and re recorded with not much damage to the recording or shaving stylus.