The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

It seems that Electrophone started with recording metallic soap records one at a time. I found this kewel article when they just started.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 28,1117156

I went to Union whenever Elelctrophone first introduced there black plastic cylinders, they were showing prototype ones where they said they had to snap all the ends on the records and glue them in, when was this?

Hello,
last summer I bought a batch of 40 Blue Amberols at an estate sale and was surprised to find two Electrophone cylinders in the group. The date on the boxes says 1985. How long were these produced?
Pete

edisonphonoworks wrote:It seems that Electrophone started with recording metallic soap records one at a time. I found this kewel article when they just started.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 28,1117156

Yes, definitely true. I own their very first "production" title, "Crazy Rythm" [sic] by Vince Giordano's Night Hawks, record 5001, which is on a caramel colored Miller-Morris Record blank. The box label and lid label are black and white, and the record info was filled in by hand, probably by Patti Valente. I bought this directly from the Valentis when they had their shop in NY in the 70s and 80s. I recall Patti telling me they changed their labels very shortly after this came out.

i have a electrophone, I got it directly from Duncan miller who made them, he said it was in his archive so I think mine mush be a reasonably early one

I'm showing my age here..... I was 21 in 1995 when I bought my first two copies of Electrophones, it was Yankee Doodle Boy and The Liver Story, I purchased them from Dennis & Patti Valenti for $ 15.00 each. They played very nice, except my Columbia Q floating reproducer shredded the "Yankee Doodle Boy" cylinder, I think the stylus may have been bad so I replaced it. The early Electrophones seemed to be a softer vinyl like plastic and were not as hard as the current resin records on the market.

I am uncertain as to how long they were produced, maybe 10 years (1985-1995), by the late nineties they were no longer seen in the catalogs. When Vulcan released the Liver Story, I sold my Electrophone version and purchased the Vulcan copy which was more money but a much tougher record.

I will say they did a great job on these and are nice records, it was an early attempt to re-issue some cylinders, especially with it being before the internet and so hard to find good playable cylinders back in the 1980s.

The record ends appeared to be glued on to make them more stable in playing, getting these records to be perfectly round is the challenge.

Victrolacollector wrote:I'm showing my age here..... I was 21 in 1995

I wasn't even a foetus then

here is a video of my electrophone record, it is the smiler, played on piano by paul morris under a stage name, the announcement is done by Duncan miller who now does Vulcan records.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCpt3YM1FN8

Yes, I have a couple of the earliest Electrophones (as far as I know): they were first molded in a fairly soft red vinyl, which was terribly noisy. After they switched to the black vinyl, the quality was improved immeasurably…

Bill

The red ones are rubbery and sometimes have a greasy feel and like others have said do not play as well as the others. Another problem with some of the red ones are that they sometimes go out of round and do not fit on the mandrel.

I have one red that doesn't play too bad and that is a copy of Sophie Tucker good morning judge...



Stephen