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Here are my Fibre Needle Packs... Enjoy Todd

A great source of fibre!

What a great thread!

James.

gramophoneshane wrote: Thu Jun 24, 2021 6:24 am I love the Polydor fibres.
The container must have cost more to manufacture than the needles.

The Polydor needles are definitively not thorn needles. These were most of the time semi-long playing needles from the 50s in Germany. There very common here.

By far more rar is this box of Electrola fiber needles. Fiber needles were very unpopular and unknown in Germany. I never saw a advert or a cutter for these. There were thorn and some other wooden needles but also much less than in GB or USA

Sadly the Velvetone needles turn to powder when played. Time has not been kind to them. I'll look around and see if I can find another pack somewhere. I tend to frame them and give away duplicates, but it's possible I saved one.

One thought... Fibre needles I believe were not popular at all when compared with steel needles. Fibre was aimed to a certain niche in the market, but if you compare the abundance of steel needles with fibre... steel wins by far in all countries.
Maybe we collectors give the false impression that fibre was enormously popular, but the truth is they are popular among us, who are playing records 100 years old and reviving things of that time. But we're all a niche, so the proportion of matters in our community cannot be extrapolated to what happened 100 years ago with the general public.
In America, advertising of fibre seems to be more general, but in Europe, this advertising was addressed to the 'Connoisseur', not to the general public. I suspect we have rescued so many things related to fibre needles that we give the false impression that their use was popular then... In Spain I've seen lots of steel needle tins (last Sunday, for instance) but never a single pack of fibres.
We're conscious of the life of our records and feel some fear to wear them out, one thing that I suspect was not the general feeling among the great public in those days. Wearing out records when played many times must have been more or less assumed by people then. I believe they weren't so cautious as we are today with these marvels. When a popular record was in vogue they didn't worry to wear it out: in some months, the popular records were others, and so on. Despite the songs in fashion must have lasted longer than today!
May not be the complete or exact truth, but a certain smell of all this... I believe is true.

Got a packet of Fiber needles amongst other types at the flea market.

rizbone wrote: Tue Jun 29, 2021 9:56 pm Sadly the Velvetone needles turn to powder when played. Time has not been kind to them. I'll look around and see if I can find another pack somewhere. I tend to frame them and give away duplicates, but it's possible I saved one.

Reviving an old thread since I've just tried one of these Velvetone Whale Ivory needles. I've had some for a while and not got round to it until now - excellent result, albeit with a slight harshness in the treble compared to BCNs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSRh1X9oH_Q

As supplied, the point is very slender and at an acute angle. But instead of sanding them at that angle to re-sharpen as instructed, I used an EMG Davey cutter at the conventional angle for bamboo fibre needles.

I didn't see any xylopin wood needles here so here you go!

Can't get enough of these.