The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

As mentioned in another thread in a different context, I am in the process of cleaning and testing records from a batch of Diamond Discs I picked up from a Craigslist ad some time back. One of the last I cleaned was a bit curious, because there was no label at all on what is the "L" side of 82536, Ave Maria by soprano Marie Rappold and violinist Albert Spalding. The unlabeled side has a spoken narrative giving information about the music and about each of the performers.

Clay

Like yours, many of the early operatic/classical Diamond Disks featured an explanatory talk by Harry Humphrey on the reverse. On the engraved label version, there is no label or credit on the "talk". The paper label versions do have a regular paper label on the "talk" side with credit to Humphrey.

You will occasionally find a seller describing this type of disk as "one sided" (because of the lack of a label on the "talk" side) which is of course not correct. However, one sided Diamond Disks do exist. They were made for only a few titles for a very short period of time. About 2 or 3 of them show up on ebay in any given year.

52089 wrote:Like yours, many of the early operatic/classical Diamond Disks featured an explanatory talk by Harry Humphrey on the reverse. On the engraved label version, there is no label or credit on the "talk". The paper label versions do have a regular paper label on the "talk" side with credit to Humphrey.

You will occasionally find a seller describing this type of disk as "one sided" (because of the lack of a label on the "talk" side) which is of course not correct. However, one sided Diamond Disks do exist. They were made for only a few titles for a very short period of time. About 2 or 3 of them show up on ebay in any given year.

Thanks for the background information. This is the first one I've come across. All in all it was a rather nice idea.

Clay