WANTED TO BUY: The first two sided reproduction Edison

[A Ford 1]

Hi donniej,
I have sent you a pm thank you kindly.
Allen

[WDC]

As far as getting Norman involved, he already has his market and the last DD he made was at least $100, making it unavailable to the new or average collector.

As posted before, I do not produce the records myself but rather pay for their actual production. This usually means to risk my own money if a title fails. With the cylinders, I made my calculation open a long time ago. Who else has by now?

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... t=#p125818


Regarding the Advertising Diamond Disc, so for not only "the last" but the only one, this was a costly project, that I simply managed for Charley Hummel, who actually sold them. I put my work into the labels and cover design, for which I did not charge anything. Otherwise, I ordered the production of the record and arranged the payment for it. So, what did I actually earn with these? Nothing. It was a simple friendly turn.

Although I would love give them away for free, should you expect me to hand out these records wrapped in Dollar bills, it is very unlikely to happen any soon.

[Curt A]

As far as getting Norman involved, he already has his market and the last DD he made was at least $100, making it unavailable to the new or average collector.

As posted before, I do not produce the records myself but rather pay for their actual production. This usually means to risk my own money if a title fails. With the cylinders, I made my calculation open a long time ago. Who else has by now?

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... t=#p125818


Regarding the Advertising Diamond Disc, so for not only "the last" but the only one, this was a costly project, that I simply managed for Charley Hummel, who actually sold them. I put my work into the labels and cover design, for which I did not charge anything. Otherwise, I ordered the production of the record and arranged the payment for it. So, what did I actually earn with these? Nothing. It was a simple friendly turn.

Although I would love give them away for free, should you expect me to hand out these records wrapped in Dollar bills, it is very unlikely to happen any soon.

Although you may be taking this in some personal way, my comment was not a criticism of your records, the price charged or anything personal... just a fact.

I know the cost of production is high and the amount of risk is high and the amount of profit is low, so it is just a comparison of production costs. Fortunately Don has discovered a way to produce these himself and is able to sell them at a price which is affordable to the average collector, who is either unable or unwilling to pay in excess of $100 for a single record.

Please accept my apology, if you took this comment as anything but factual...

[donniej]

I've worked very hard to keep costs down, and luckily the landlord is sympathetic That's a joke as I'm doing this out of my basement with no employees and only materials and equipment as overhead. If someone else was making these at a place where they had to pay rent, an employee or two, manage a website, etc... I could understand why they'd need to sell them for much more.
Though I hope to eventually break even, or maybe even make a few $$$, the main reason I'm making all these different reproductions is because I never had much money and it made me jealous that I couldn't afford a $500 copy of a record just because there were so few of them. I also have problems sitting still for very long and am good at making things Now I have most of the big labels copies of the Charleston, and others do too. This is due in part to the generosity of others who feel the same and have been kind enough to lend me their records.

Now if I could just get ahold of some more Berliners to copy...

[WDC]

Don, I posted that before and I do mean it: Your accomplishments are very impressive. If you can go on with this, it will be certainly a great addition to the availability of discs. I am still enjoying that Berliner disc that I once bought from Peter Liebert. It is great to have something to play without worrying about its wear. And I have been experimenting with discs myself for some 8 years now. Though I do have a working prototype I have not finished my r&d yet. So it's good that you have come forward with a product that people appreciate. Although I wished that I could, I cannot afford the purchase of $500 records on a regular basis either. Instead, I am putting more than that into flight tickets, rental car, etc., so I can get hands on the source records on site. But sometimes the only way is to actually buy it and I had to do this more than once with a price tag of well over $1000. I have contractors like Vulcan Records and Edisonia, who are part of my supply chain. Beside the label work and actual retail, my main task is to explore suitable sources. And that can require a considerable amount of investment too. It is a different approach, yet still a labor of love.

Curt, Thank you for the clarification. With diamond discs, it is just a fact, that I never had any listed in my catalog.

Yet I still consider a record for $80 as something that even an average collector can afford, unlike the originals, such as Kansas City Kitty which usually sells for $1000-3000. It is only because of that, that I am putting a minimum of $800 into each newly cut title. I just cannot offer something for less than I have paid myself. When I started with newly cut cylinders, I had no clue what to charge for but did know what I had to. So, I put the first one into auction. It sold for over $500 and it was properly described. In two decades, some interesting Blue Amberols have also accumulated in my collection, which I am also using as a source for direct molds. Because these can be produced much more inexpensively, I am passing on the savings and offer them at half the price of my others. I would have been homeless a long time ago if I had to make a living from this.

[BusyBeeCylinder]

From what I can tell from the Youtube video's Don is doing a nice job and is providing quite a service in offering "new" DD copies at such a low price.

After Peter Liebert stopped making DD's I looked into doing so myself, but doing the math (factoring in the amount of time it takes to create one finished, packaged record) - I couldn't see being able to turn out a professional product for under $75....and that price didn't factor in the cost of the equipment that would need to be purchased / fabricated nor the cost of procuring suitable source material & creating packaging. Unlike Norman & Charley - I do everything in house so I have good control over my manufacturing costs. So kudos again to Don for offering his copies at such a cheap price.

Using other collectors records as source material has always been of concern for me. Based on Peter Liebert's results duplicating DDs, I learned that there is a chance of delaminating the original in the process of creating a mold. The loss of a mint copy of "bunch at orange" is why Peter stopped making DD's. THAT was an expensive lesson.

When I do "custom" copies of cylinders for collectors, I always require that a value be put on the original ahead of time and that if the original is damaged in anyway and the customer wishes compensation, then I purchase it for the agreed upon value. Fortunately after 5 years of making new cylinder records, I feel comfortable that I take enough precautions that the risk of damage from my process is almost non-existent, and I've never damaged a record (mine or otherwise) since my first self-produced release back in 2012...but the risk does need to be calculated into the cost of doing business (call it self-insurance). There is always the risk of dropping a record, or inadvertently scratching it in handling.

I guess my point to this rambling is that I think Norman's products are priced at a fair value, and I own many of them myself.

-Rob