Why were early records only recorded on one side?

[victorIIvictor]

Skihawx wrote, "I am surprised that one could patent the double sided concept in 1901 if an example was in the public domain in 1900."

"A Record for the Children" is quite rare and Petit may well not have been aware of it.

Mr. Petit may well have beaten Victor to the patent office (the timeline between Victor's issue of "A Record for the Children" and Petit filing his patent is quite close), and with Victor doing very well dominating the US market with single sided discs, they probably didn't care and/or pay attention to Petit's patent. IIRC, they later acquired it to foil Columbia's 1908 conversion of their line to double-discs in the courts, to no avail. I seem to recall a story where one of Columbia's lawyers asked the judge, "if we are to be limited to recording on one side of a disc, your honor, to **which** side should we be limited?" Petit's patent was later invalidated, and Victor lost the suit.

"Unless there was earlier work documented that preceded the Victor release or maybe the patent was issued in 1901 and the application preceded the Victor release."

No, "A Record for the Children" is the first documented double sided record. Also, Petit filed his patent in early January, 1901, but it was not granted in the USA until 1903. But, as you see, it was off to the races in the rest of the world.

Best wishes, Mark

[welshfield]

victorllvictor wrote:
IIRC, they later acquired it to foil Columbia's 1908 conversion

What is IIRC that Columbia acquired???

[Roaring20s]

IIRC = If I Remember Correctly

FYI... http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =7&t=31174

James.

[Garret]

Mark's thoughts on patents gave me an idea. Maybe it was simply all about money after the various technological hurdles were overcome? Perhaps the numbers were such that record companies and artists could earn more selling single sided discs than double-sided records, when factoring in the selling price of each disc and artist royalties?

Best,

Garret

[Curt A]

The answer to one sided records seems to be found in this quote: "I seem to recall a story where one of Columbia's lawyers asked the judge, "if we are to be limited to recording on one side of a disc, your honor, to **which** side should we be limited?"

Obviously, they couldn't determine which was the best side to record on...

[tinovanderzwan]

since the reactions in this thread show, that there was no technical reason why they couldn't make double face records earlier or even from the start.

so the answer is a Pythonesque one namely... money!
why make a double face record if you can make a single face one and sell it you'll make double the money selling 2 titles.


tino

[tinovanderzwan]

Mark's thoughts on patents gave me an idea. Maybe it was simply all about money after the various technological hurdles were overcome? Perhaps the numbers were such that record companies and artists could earn more selling single sided discs than double-sided records, when factoring in the selling price of each disc and artist royalties?

Best,

Garret

I apparently skipped this on while reading the other ones so since my reaction infers the same I'll say my idea exactly!

also, the existing paradigm was the single recording (aka the wax cylinder) so if one doesn't know anything else, one follows the well-trodden pass

ps artist royalties didn't exist yet in the very early days an artist was paid for the recording (in some cases quite handsomely in the case of a famous person) it didn't matter how much the recording sold the artist was paid a fixed amount for the time it took to make the recordings

I think it was tamagno who came up with a selling fee for his recordings he declined the normal recording fee and wanted 1 pound on each recording sold


tino

[CarlosV]

German Odeon and its affiliate labels (Fonotipia etc) were issuing two-sideed records early in the 20th century. Most of the Fonotipia were two-sided, and their earliest recordings dated from 1905 or even earlier.

[phonogfp]

I'm a little late to the party, having been visiting family in Florida for several days and "off the grid."

The Johnson/Victor "Improved Record" of A-490/491 A Record for the Children was indeed the first double-sided disc to be released to the public. But it should be noted that evidently the record was not available separately from the Toy Gramophone with which it was supplied - at least it hasn't been noted in Johnson/Victor record catalogs of the period. (An article on this record and its historical significance appeared in The Antique Phonograph Monthly Vol. VIII, No.2 in 1985.)

Interestingly, A-490 has turned up as a single-sided pressing as well. Again, I haven't seen this version in record catalogs of the period, but I'd be obliged if someone would educate me on this point.

Johnson/Victor's A Record for the Children was not the first double-sided record to be manufactured. There are Berliner test pressings from the summer of 1900 which exist, as well as one known example of a double-sided etched-label 7" Zonophone. A few white-label double-sided 10" test pressings exist from the 1902/03 period as well. All of these records (and those cited in earlier posts) demonstrate that double-sided discs were possible much sooner than 1908, when they came into general use.

Victor's corporate response to the double-sided record, as seen in late 1908/early 1909 issues of The Talking Machine World makes it clear that the firm was making them under protest - Columbia had forced them into it. Victor believed it was bad business, and predicted that others in the industry would eventually agree with them. That's pretty interesting, considering it came from the company which first made the feature available 8 years earlier!

George P.

[Starkton]

Louis Rosenthal of Frankfurt on the Main recorded both sides of metal discs from at least April 1894. Double-sided records were to be used on his Echograph gramophones and on talking dolls. Surprisingly late, in May 1899, Rosenthal was the first to patent the double-sided record. But as Rosenthal's patent was poorly phrased, describing that one side was pressed after the other, Ademor Napoleon Petit, in January 1901, carried away the victory with his better applicable process that both sides were pressed at the same time.

In July 1901, Frederick Marion Prescott (Berlin, Germany), who was assigned one half of the Petit patent, wrote to Fred Figner (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil): "[...] the person who controls the double sided disk can always give to the public the equivalent of two records for the former price of one; consequently the man, who can only sell a single sided record, will always have to cut his price in halfs and we can always meet his competition and still offer the public twice as much as he, because our records will not cost us any more than his."

In May 1902, the first shipment of double-sided Zonophone records (both 7" and 10") left Paris for Brasil.

From January 1904, double-sided Odeon discs, recorded and pressed by The International Talking Machine Co. in Neu-Weissensee, Berlin, were sold throughout Europe. Its largest competitor, the Gramophone Co., was shocked: "They say the public insists on having these double records because they are only half the price of ours and much larger in proportion." After settling the dispute with Frederic Prescott about the Petit patent, the Gramophone Co., from March 1905, also manufactured double-sided records.