The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The more I find my wax cylinders disintegrating and breaking, the more I appreciate my new plastic cylinders. I had once thought about parting with all of my wax cylinders, just too fragile.

Altough i completely agree with you, i really like wax cylinders. There's something magical about them i think.
But their fragility can be very irritating; I've already broken two wax cylinders...

- Timo

There is something non tangible that seems to make the metallic soap cylinders desirous to play. I do not get the same feeling I get from playing a wax like record to the celluloid, or plastic kind, although I find the new resin epoxy kind to be durable and good demonstrators, however when one feels them in the hand after the black, or brown soap there is something, you can't put your finger on, that is not there. Even when making blanks, it seems the look of an original style brown wax and duplicating its secret formula can be a euphoric experience. The downfall, however is the sadness one feels when he had broken a favorite wax record, and I do find the Amberol to the be most disheartening of all as they seem to crack from no contact at all, so these really are gems to make new plastic copies of. My next project though is to make an exact duplicate in all respects of an Edison style brown metallic soap concert record, down to the spiral core, but that will take awhile but drawings are being made for molds and a recording/playback machine. I think it would be neat to actually have musicians make 1 off master concert records and sell them to the highest bidder, lets say a cornet, and clarionet duet with piano accompaniment, or a live jazz band recording, made by the round.

There is nothing like the smooth clear sound of a minty wax cylinder. When I first started collecting 45+ years ago, I lucked onto a few 2M wax cylinders that surely must have been new-old dealer stock. They looked and sounded absolutely mint. Surface noise was practically non-existent.

I also purchased some shiny black minty cylinders back in 1993 and 2005. They were some of the best sounding loud records. But mint cylinders are far and few between. When we find mint cylinders it shows how great the technology was.

Victrolacollector wrote:The more I find my wax cylinders disintegrating and breaking, the more I appreciate my new plastic cylinders. I had once thought about parting with all of my wax cylinders, just too fragile.

The promoters of indestructible cylinders were ready to exploit the problem :

Ready to exploit the problem? Absolutely and rightfully so. I have never dropped and broken an indestructible. Even tougher than Blue Amberols but the Blue Amberols sound noticeably better than the 4 min indestructies.

I entirely agree. Apart from a couple of Indestructibles, including a grey "Oxford" acquired as curiosities, my small cylinder collection of about 100 is exclusively Blue Amberol.

The newly issued plastic versions of operatic 4-minute Wax Amberols are to be welcomed and deserve every success. If only Edison had re-issued more of these treasures in Blue Amberol format.

Thank God for Columbia Indestructibles. They beat Edison at his own game!....And even he knew it!...way back in 1908!

The new epoxy Plastic resin repros are great also. I hope the guys out there keep making them for years to come, I have some of those too and they are great! What's great about the new Resin cylinders are all of the cool new titles and repros of the hard to find stuff.

)


Tony K.

Thank God for Columbia Indestructibles. They beat Edison at his own game!

Not exactly. Edison spent years perfecting how to mold cylinders and he intended to use celluloid. Edison was the victim of industrial espionage. To make a long story short, an Edison employee quit and took out patents using Edison's ideas. The Lambert company resulted from that. I think Indestructible/Columbia resulted from Lambert. Ironic that Edison had to later buy patents of his own research to get back into the game.