Bought A Few Cylinders & Found A Little Surprise

[FellowCollector]

That is indeed a great find and welcome to the quite exclusive club of Edison Advertising Record owners!
With yours I am now aware of five existing originals all together. Assuming that there might be around 15 left worldwide, this is indeed an extreme rarity. Keep it safe and only play it as few times as possible, if ever.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I knew this cylinder was a rare find but I had not realized so few originals existed. Thanks for sharing that information. I played it just once after I found it, then took that one picture and then put it away securely. I still cannot believe that it survived just fine being wrapped only in that old cotton batting next to other cylinders in the same box that were in their boxes. There were actually 2 cylinders in the wooden crate wrapped only in the cotton batting. This one I found first and then I thought "Ohhhh boy! There might be 2 of these Advertising cylinders in here..." But...no...just one. The other one was a fairly common 2 minute black wax cylinder which I placed into an Edison cotton padded cylinder box.

I'm now about 99% convinced that some of the wax cylinders in this group were unsold Edison dealer stock as I've now found 3 copies of #8894 "Thoroughbred Two-Step" and #9017 "La Cascade" and 2 copies of several other titles. All in super nice condition with matching lids.

I have also found about 50 early brown wax cylinders as well in the group. Some are in the early pasteboard pegged boxes and some were in what I call the early "fat" Edison cylinder boxes with the glued cardboard peg inside. A number of the brown wax cylinder (maybe 5 or 6) are lovely early home recordings of someone playing a piano and another has a man telling of how no one should eat tripe!

There was at least one Uncle Josh selection on a Lambert cylinder along with a number of his early brown wax cylinders. The earlier picture on page 1 shows some of the cylinders on our sofa that I nearly filled with them after bringing them in. It was extremely cold (like 5 degrees outside!) when I brought them home and I had a great concern about some of the wax cylinders in the unheated trunk for the long distance. But they seem to have all survived just fine.

Below are a couple of additional pictures of a few brown wax cylinders in an early pasteboard box. This box had a couple of elusive Uncle Josh cylinders in it. You are seeing the box contents exactly as I did when I opened it. I have removed none of these. I can see that one cylinder has a harmless haze or film on it similar to the light haze on some black wax cylinders that have not been played in a loooooong time. Lightly wiping these cylinders will remove that light haze. Sometimes for black wax cylinders with this film on them I just play them as is and the reproducer stylus cleans the film right off nicely. Then I carefully wipe the cylinder off when it is done playing (and the stylus!!).

Doug

[FloridaClay]

And most of the brown wax cylinders look to be in amazingly good condition!

As you may know, there is a very good reproduction of the advertising cylinder made by Edisonia. I use it regularly to demonstrate my Standard for guests. It would give you one to play without putting the original at risk.

Congratulations again!

Clay

[FellowCollector]

And most of the brown wax cylinders look to be in amazingly good condition!

As you may know, there is a very good reproduction of the advertising cylinder made by Edisonia. I use it regularly to demonstrate my Standard for guests. It would give you one to play without putting the original at risk.

Congratulations again!

Clay

Thanks Clay. I bought a reproduction copy of this original Advertising cylinder maybe 10 or 15 years ago but it was one of those that were made on a brown wax blank and I was never pleased with the sound. I played it once, was disappointed and put it away. But now that there is a better more durable version available I may get that one to play as I don't want to play this original more than the one time I have so far.

Best,
Doug

[ambrola]

I have an original but its real noisy. I also have the old reproduction that was made in the 90's. I play that one. Its very loud and clear. I think without looking for it that it is a Wizard Cylinder.

[Phonofreak]

I have that Wizard cylinder that I bought several years ago from Peter Dilg. It has a copy of the words that are spoken on the record. The price was very reasonable for all the work he puts into his cylinders.
Harvey Kravitz

[FloridaClay]

The new Edisonia (which dates from January 2013) is made out of celluloid, or something similar, and is very good quality.

Clay

[ambrola]

I have that Wizard cylinder that I bought several years ago from Peter Dilg. It has a copy of the words that are spoken on the record. The price was very reasonable for all the work he puts into his cylinders.
Harvey Kravitz

That's the one Harvey. Its really a loud clean cylinder. Peter did a great job on those.

[zenith82]

And most of the brown wax cylinders look to be in amazingly good condition!

I noticed that, too. It doesn't look like they spent much if any time in an attic or basement. Always good when you can find something a century old that was cared for throughout its life.

[FellowCollector]

FloridaClay wrote:
And most of the brown wax cylinders look to be in amazingly good condition!

I noticed that, too. It doesn't look like they spent much if any time in an attic or basement. Always good when you can find something a century old that was cared for throughout its life.

The brown wax cylinders in this group are some of the finest condition of any I have ever found. I included a couple of additional pictures of the boxes of brown wax cylinders in this group (note "Iver Johnson Sporting Goods"!!) and the contents of one of the larger boxes - exactly as I found it complete with original owner's handwritten titles on the cylinder peg tops. The ends of the cylinders in the picture have very light mildew but that is the extent of it. The remainder of each cylinder is near perfect and they still smell like fresh wax Crayola Crayons...that nice wax smell just as they should when early brown wax cylinders have been meticulously cared for. The only one that I have played from the pictured box of brown wax cylinders is the one that has the slip of paper inside it: "Casey On Love". It played beautifully, loud and clear. I'd thought it might be one of Russell Hunting's early "Casey at..." cylinders but I was instead stunned to hear that it was performed by James White - one of the few pioneer recording artists from the late 1890's who were known for making "indecent" recordings. Russell Hunting was another and Hunting was actually arrested for violating obscenity laws! Anyway, I found absolutely nothing objectionable about this brown wax recording by James White but then a LOT has changed in 115 or so years!

I'm hoping to post a video or two of some of these lovely brown wax cylinders on my YouTube channel. Interestingly, in the pictured box of brown wax cylinders there are a couple of additional Uncle Josh selections. An unexpected bonus for this group of cylinders is that I actually found TWO decent copies of "Uncle Josh And The Paw Paw Valley Railroad" on brown wax cylinder!

Doug

[STARR-OLA]

Great find especially when you didnt expect it.