The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just wanted to chime in about Shawn's North American as I was the previous owner!

The cylinder came from a box of 36 brown wax, all shaved by the collector who owned them before me. According to a friend as he died about a decade ago, this guy wasn't terribly historically-senstive with his machines or accessories, so chances are since all of the brown wax in this case show no sign of mold, not even on the rims or inside, he probably shaved over decent recordings.

Anyway, there were two North Americans, one with the odd air bubble in the rim that I gave to Shawn and the one I am keeping that also is a pretty dark chocolate brown hue, which may not be terribly obviously under the light from my desk lamp!

-Jake

I believe that channel rims on North American cylinders were molded. The channel rim on your and Shawn's cylinder is lathe-turned. Could it be that someone tried to imitate N.A. cylinders?

These all raise more questions than answers it seems. The only difference I see between these two cylinders. By the color, spirals and ends, I am sure these are early Edison blanks at any rate, 2.163" for size of my "Channeled Rim cylinder" of a Shaved Early Edison blanks makes sense, That is still within commercial record thickness indicating it probably was in the 2.170-180" range, when it had its original recording intact. That alone indicates and Edison blank,(Edison was the only blank maker in town anyhow until about mid 1896, even Columbia purchased Edison blanks surreptitiously into 1897.) With a single spiral, indicating early 1890s previous to at least 1896. An early Columbia self made blank in the late 1897-early 1898 era is 2.143" with the original factory Laughing Song by George W Johnson with original ticket, much thinner in diameter than the shaved NAPC. You will find early self made Columbia blanks up until 1899 to be thinner, and slightly shorter than Edison brown wax records. In late 1899 early 1900 Columbia started to make blanks and records of the same length as Edison, however the spirals inside are single, but wide and shallow compared to Edison. Perhaps these were recorded by a NAPC sub company that received non channeled rim blanks from Edison and made there own. Who knows a strange mystery.