Okeh Vertical Dilemma

[OrthoSean]

And here's the ad from the May, 1918 "Talking Machine World" announcing Okeh vertical discs to the trade.

Sean

[victorIIvictor]

Sean wrote, " Interesting to see also that Okeh started out in Rex's recording studios but never reissued any of Rex's material."

Interesting, but perhaps not too surprising, since General Phonograph (Okeh), by issuing discs from the get-go that purportedly could be played with either a sapphire or a steel needle, could avoid being limited to the sapphire ball reproduction technology that Keenophone/Rex/Imperial employed, and which did not help the latter firm in the marketplace. To reissue any of the sapphire ball-only Keenophone/Rex/Imperial masters in the Okeh format, General Phonograph would have had to employ the pantograph method Pathé was famous/infamous for. Perhaps General Phonograph wanted to avoid the inconsistent results obtained from pantographing from disc to disc (which Pathé did not even do), or perhaps there were legal reasons for their not reissuing the Keenophone/Rex/Imperial masters. (Even if the latter were not up-to-date, I'm sure General Phonograph could have found some recordings of standards to reissue within that catalogue).

--Mark

PS, thanks for posting General Phonograph's puff piece from the Talking Machine World! It's interesting that the Okeh discs are only described as being hill and dale, not that they could be played either with a sapphire or a steel needle. One would think that General Phonograph would have mentioned that in the article.

[Wolfe]

I dunno. I assumed vertical Okeh were needle records, but I just located one (# 1239 - one of the late ones in the vertical series) and in the light the grooves look much "broader" compared to a real needle record and not unlike other ball point records like Pathé. But nothing on the label indicating either.

[Lucius1958]

Thanks for all the info!

It may be some consolation to know that the damage shown is on the less 'desirable' side of the record (#1140-A, "Blue Rose Waltz" )…

I will definitely invest in a sapphire or two… and start looking for some vertical Pathés.

Bill

[OrthoSean]

Bill,

Ron Sitko recently acquired new old stock Pathé sapphires in shanks all ready to use. I picked one up at the Wayne show in April and I was so impressed with it that I bought two more to have as spares. The ones he (and others) have offered recently at the same price ($40) were new production and FAR inferior to what he has now. I'd suggest to you (and anyone else here) to get one or two, at that price, they're a bragain and you know you're getting original unused stock. The new production ones I was told could actually be made from glass, which I've heard about before, but I noticed these were damaging discs meant to be played with them rather quickly (I only play Pathés and Rex discs like this anyway). The original stock ones from Ron don't, the one I've been using a couple of months now is played almost daily.

By the way, if you go back and look at the TMW announcement I posted, it does indeed say that Okeh discs could be played with steel or sapphire, just perhaps a bit of a stretch on their end. Or was it planned obsolescence?

Sean

[victorIIvictor]

Sean wrote, "By the way, if you go back and look at the TMW announcement I posted, it does indeed say that Okeh discs could be played with steel or sapphire, just perhaps a bit of a stretch on their end."

So it does! I was not able to increase the font size of the article very much on my computer, so maybe that is why I missed that--it **is** in the first sentence of the third paragraph. So I wonder if these early Okeh discs really were in the Keenophone/Rex/Imperial style, and General Phonograph merely claimed they could be played with steel needles to expand their market. That seems like a good way to disappoint customers.

[Edisone]

... also note that it says "a sapphire POINT" , not a ball, although I doubt the shellac held-up any better than with a steel needle. Pathé seemed to know what they were doing, when they used the wide, shallow groove & big sapphire ball.

ps - Thanks for posting the TMW page; when I saw that it was a different scan from what I've downloaded, I went back to the Archive site & saw that the July-Dec 1918 issues have been posted since I downloaded Jan-June some time ago. Jan-Jun 1926 seems to remain AWOL.

PPS - I just downloaded their new scans of Jan-June 1918 (the jp2 version, if you click the "HTTPS" link next to "All Files" ; it is an ENORMOUSLY BETTER job than what was previously available! Now I hafta check all the others.

[OrthoSean]

You're welcome and yes, I noticed they've added more (and better) scans of the TMW also, but I don't have much spare time to really dig in these days. Going to download them all and save them for future (winter) reading!

Sean