The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

hi all,
is it possible the edison and columbia cylinders are not compatible? i mean the grooves. because when i play a columbia 4 minutes cylinder at the begining the stylus is ok but after 3,5 minutes it jumps 1 groove. and it makes it 2-3 times more to the end. it happens only by columbia celluloid cylinders. what is your experience?

Your Columbia cylinder celluloid has shrunk a bit on its cardboard core. This happens eventually to all celluloid, but with Edison's plaster core, it seems to happen more slowly, in my experience. The skipping occurs because the metal feed screw threads are constant, while the celluloid groove is not.
The 4-minute celluloid cylinders seem to skip more than the two-minute variety...maybe because of the groove width.
Bob

thanks for the info, Bob!

Yep! As stated above, The Columbia Indestructible (Albany Indestructible) cylinders sometimes suffer from shrinkage due to decades of Camphor evaporation. This "natural" aging process of the cylinders can sometimes cause skipping...usually towards the beginning or end of a cylinder as the playing area gets closer to the inner metal rings.

Tony K.

Another possibility is a stylus that's wearing out. I have some Indestructibles that won't play on my Amberola 50 (with a stylus that's not great) but play just fine on nearly any other machine I own.

By the way, To really get to the heart of your question, The Columbia Indestructible cylinders (Albany Indestructibles 1907-1922) are a 100% compatible with all Edison 2M and 4M machines. They are some of the best cylinders I own! I have a few hundred of them. On some Earlier Brown wax machine Edisons, Some speed adjusting is required to increase the speed on Early Brown wax machines to 160rpm from 144rpm to get them to sound right.

Tony K.