The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I bought a "London" phonograph cylinder made by a very short-lived enterprise in good condition.
When it arrived it was stuffed into a short piece of hard plastic tube.
Obviously it was shattered!
When I contacted the seller I was told that she had sold many blue records packed in the same manner which had arrived safely and that solid packaging was the best way to protect these type of records.

Why do they do it? A combination of laziness and ignorance, I suspect. I collect discs. Most have arrived very well packed, but one moron sent me a rather rare 78 in a manilla envelope! Of course it arrived shattered, and when I complained, he told me to ship it back, so he could make sure it was broken. Dumb and dumber.

But most reputable dealers to a pretty good job!

I had the same problem with a copy of Rollem Girls on 78. Stuck in a padded mailer and shipped. Just looking at it i knew it was broken...in to hundred pieces. I tossed it and lost 15.00.

When I ship wax cylinders I use one of the (free) Priority Mail No. 4 boxes. First I wrap the cylinder and its box in a sheet of clean blank newsprint and then place two crumpled sheets of blank newsprint in the bottom of the box, followed by the wrapped cylinder, topped off by another sheet of crumpled newsprint, which leaves the cylinder gently cushioned in the No.4 box.

I then nest the No.4 box into a No. 7 box, cushioned with styrofoam popcorn. I have not so far lost a cylinder, even wax Amberols. I suppose that I'm due a damaged parcel.

Just my 2 cents, but I would never buy any wax cylinder on eBay... Even if packed well, just the changes in temperature from one location to another can cause breakage... and wax Amberols are the worst - look at them wrong and they break.

A lot of sellers are lazy about packing and simply won't bother to do it right, even after they have been told how. Practically everything I buy is fragile and I usually tell a seller I haven't bought from before how I want the item packed. In some cases, I tell them I won't even bother to bid unless they agree to my packing method. Some have agreed and later reneged on the agreement. I really prefer doing repeat business with trusted sellers.

I wonder how many records have been broken since eBay started in business?

There are several sellers who I can trust with packing wax cylinders. But usually I never have them shipped directly over the pond but keep them at friend's house in the US and pick them up myself. Especially customs are known to rip the even most careful packaging apart without any respect towards the owner.

I have posted this in the past, but this is what happened when I bought a cylinder from the UK ebay seller collectorsmachines (selling under a the name oldtecnics back then), who used one layer of coardboard for packing and places change in coins inside the brown wax cylinder. Of course, he refused any responsibility, so he has been on my no-buy-list ever since.