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I recently bought a decent size (36) lot of Oxford 4-minutes cylinders. In that lot was one darker blue, two lighter blue, and one very light (almost white) grey record. The rest were regular black records. The cardboard tubes were two tone brown and two tone blue. Was the color of the records just a selling gimmick? The darker blue one I thought for sure was a Blue Amberol but it was actually an Oxford. Most of the lids were intact also.....

Any thoughts to color ?

The nature of the material means you can add just about any color you want when mixing up the celluloid for moulding. Even Edison Blue Amberols color varied quite a bit over the years. I'm surprised there weren't more celluloid cylinders in different colors.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but are 4m Oxfords playable with an amberola diamond reproducer? I thought yes, but played 2 of them on my amberola 30, and both had quite a bit of black residue after playing.

jsonova99 wrote:Not trying to hijack the thread, but are 4m Oxfords playable with an amberola diamond reproducer? I thought yes, but played 2 of them on my amberola 30, and both had quite a bit of black residue after playing.

Haven't experienced that with my Oxfords played on a Standard D with a Diamond B reproducer.

Clay

jsonova99 wrote: are 4m Oxfords playable with an amberola diamond reproducer?

Absolutely.

If you are seeing residue after playing these Oxford (Albany) Indestructible records then:

1) the records were soiled and you're seeing residue that the diamond stylus pulled out of the grooves, or
2) your diamond stylus may be bad presuming you have the reproducer adjusted correctly relative to the record surface

briankeith wrote: In that lot was one darker blue, two lighter blue, and one very light (almost white) grey record. The rest were regular black records.

I have several thousand Albany Indestructible cylinders in my collection and my own personal experience with the blue-grey variety in both 2 minute and 4 minute is that most of them play pretty awful. Most of the blue-grey variety Albany Indestructible cylinders in my collection appear to have shallow grooves as though they were pressed using worn masters or perhaps the celluloid was inferior.

Shallow cylinder grooves with the Albany Indestructible cylinders ( labelled as Oxford, Columbia, Everlasting {not US Everlasting} ) generally yield lower volume and greatly increase the tendency of the stylus to "wander". And it's rather difficult today to find ANY 4 minute Albany Indestructible cylinder that does not skip a groove during play at some point.

I have a book here in my collection, "CYLINDER RECORDS", written and published by Duane D. Deakins, M.D.

In this book, Dr. Deakins indicates in reference to INDESTRUCTIBLE RECORD COMPANY (1907-1922) in the first paragraph, "...A FEW RECORDS WERE MADE OF BLUE CELLULOID BECAUSE OF AN ERROR AT THE FACTORY SUPPLYING THE CELLULOID."

Now, whether Dr. Deakins' reference here is based on period document research from the Company is not known. From my perspective, there were a LOT of Albany Indestructible records made of this blue celluloid - far too many for this to have been an error. But, who knows?

Doug