The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Among other things already listed, the mighty marketing machine of Victor, and the fact that Edison took until 1908 to develop a 4 min cylinder. 2 min playing time just doesn't adequately encompass what most music requires. If I was a new record buyer in 1907, looking over the offerings of Victor (and Columbia) vs. the somewhat 1890's-ish (often hackneyed) offerings still available on cylinder, I'd go the disc route, too.

I think another reason is that you can have 2 recordings on a disc and not on a cylinder. They priced these discs cheaper than the price of 2 cylinders and the storage was easier than 2 cylinders. You can place alot of 2 sided records in an album, very easy. Also, a disc has alot of room on the record label for the title of the song, singer etc and it was easier to read than the lip of a cylinder.

Wolfe wrote:Among other things already listed, the mighty marketing machine of Victor, and the fact that Edison took until 1908 to develop a 4 min cylinder. 2 min playing time just doesn't adequately encompass what most music requires. If I was a new record buyer in 1907, looking over the offerings of Victor (and Columbia) vs. the somewhat 1890's-ish (often hackneyed) offerings still available on cylinder, I'd go the disc route, too.

Very good point. For anyone with classical music leanings, Edison had a fairly limited offering - and add to that that very early on, Victor and HMV had nabbed most of the big names in classical music, starting with Caruso.

Nat wrote:For anyone with classical music leanings, Edison had a fairly limited offering - and add to that that very early on, Victor and HMV had nabbed most of the big names in classical music, starting with Caruso.

Yes, certainly, but classical singing sales represented only 5% of the turnover. Even Caruso was a loss-maker, because of his high fees.

Sitting here listening to my new (to me) HMV 103 it occurred to me the maybe at least a small part would be no portables? (were there amy portable cylinder machines?) I can imagine that when deciding on a format back in the day, the possibly of getting a portable later & taking my music with me could be a factor.

AllWoundUp wrote:Sitting here listening to my new (to me) HMV 103 it occurred to me the maybe at least a small part would be no portables? (were there amy portable cylinder machines?) I can imagine that when deciding on a format back in the day, the possibly of getting a portable later & taking my music with me could be a factor.

If by portable you mean an all in one machine in a case, then no, but most cylinder machines were so small that they were easily transported. There are quite a few pictures of cylinder machines being played out of doors.

You've never had your wax cylinders become covered in mold? Crack in cold weather?

WHAT LUCK!

You know, back when I started collecting one would find four or five wax cylinders for every Blue Amberol that turned up. My Father-in-law (who was a collector himself) remembered when one would find black wax at a twenty-to-one ratio. These days the ratio seems to be about even, there has been such great shrinkage of the Black Wax population over the last few generations. The sales of Gold Moulded cylinders were enormously greater than those of the Blue Amberols, but the rat of attrition is so much greater for the earilier records.[/quote]

Hi Vanya,
Oddly enough I don't recall losing black wax Edison cylinders to anything other than rough handling or accidental impact. I have neuropathy in my hands and can be a bit clumsy at times. I should also probably confess that I had an enormous advantage when buying my cylinders back then because I worked part-time for the owner of an enormous collection of literally 100K plus disk records and probably 1000+ cylinders. As you can imagine, he had me organizing the stacks and to pull, pack and ship orders. I had the ability to be paid in merchandise and was of course able to go through all of them and get the very best. For that reason I never had any with mold but lord knows I sifted through hundreds that did!

1923VictorFan wrote: Oddly enough I don't recall losing black wax Edison cylinders to anything other than rough handling or accidental impact.

A while back, in a fit of idleness, I carefully pulled one of my black Amberols out of it's box to examine it and a big chunk of the cylinder had somehow dislodged itself right out of the middle, leaving a big hole in the cylinder. Damberols indeed, but I suppose that's for another thread.

Starkton wrote:

Nat wrote:For anyone with classical music leanings, Edison had a fairly limited offering - and add to that that very early on, Victor and HMV had nabbed most of the big names in classical music, starting with Caruso.

Yes, certainly, but classical singing sales represented only 5% of the turnover. Even Caruso was a loss-maker, because of his high fees.

Even in such case, it lent the Victor an aura of prestige that surely boosted sales in other departments.

I think it was all about convenience. The general public has always picked convenience over quality. Every time!!

Phototone wrote:I think it was all about convenience. The general public has always picked convenience over quality. Every time!!

Yes they have.

Though you may excuse the public in 1948-50 for preferring the LP on classical works vs. 78's which still had generally noisier surfaces and limited 4-5 min playing time per side.

Speaking from now, I'm glad the public chose discs for the reasons they did. Imagine if most recorded music from 1889 to 1950 had been cylinder. What a mess of shattering, cracking, contracting, expanding, molding, mildewing wax we'd have to contend with.