The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I just got this in the mail. Opened it and it was smashed.

I'm scared because I have 7 more wax cylinders that I ordered from different people coming in the next couple of days. What if they're all smashed?

Is there a way of superglueing it back together? Would that work?

No, you can't glue them together. What you can do is make sure the seller knows how to pack them and offer suggestions, perhaps even requirements, as to how they should be packed.

And you can get your money back if you bought them through ebay, PayPal, or Amex.

OK.....You saw what happened to the Triumph.
You saw what happened to your 2 minute Gold Moulded record.

The stuff which gets sent through the mail, or via
UPS, or any other of the commonly used shipping methods
must be packed to withstand being dropped from a great
height, and thrown around.

These outfits do not in any way take any sort of
common-sense care to handle these packages nicely.

They beat the living hell out of the packages.

So, unless your stuff is packed to withstand being
at ground zero of a nuclear bomb detonation, the
contents will be destroyed.

Pure and simple.

Actually, if your buying wax records to play on your Amberola 30 (posted in the Machines section).....your buying the wrong records... .

gramophone78 wrote:Actually, if your buying wax records to play on your Amberola 30 (posted in the Machines section).....your buying the wrong records... .

You will need to look for BA (blue amberol)cylinder records for your Amberola. The one you have in the picture that is broken is a 2 minute black wax record that will not play on your machine. The 4 minute Blue Amberol records are not quite as fragile as the 2 minute black wax records. Don't buy the 4 minute black wax records as they are very, very fragile and will break if you even look sideways at it and they shouldn't be played on your Amberola either..
The Blue Amberol records are like the one that you have that is stuck on the mandrel of your machine. They are made of celluloid with a plaster core. They sometimes need to be reamed to fit on the mandrel because the plaster core can swell over time. That is why you shouldn't leave one on the mandrel as they can then become difficult to remove as you are finding out. Good luck with your new Amberola. It looks like a nice one.

If you have any questions about which cylinder records can be played with the different reproducers of Edison and Columbia, this article should help:

http://www.antiquephono.org/basic-antiq ... onal-tips/

George P.

Thanks for the advice.

I have shipped many wax cylinders and have not broke one yet. Not saying accidents dont happen. Alot of it comes down to proper packing. Just be careful where and who you buy them from. This same advice applies to disc records.

That's why I primarily collect Celluloid...!!!!

I do have some Original Wax 2 and 4 minute cylinders...but Celluloid is king when it comes to resiliantcy... Celluloid just wears like iron!

100+ year old wax cylinders are so weak that if I really want something on wax... I just have it specially recorded and order the song from some of the people out there recording to new wax blanks..but that's just me..

)

Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer

And wax Amberols are the worst. Unless they're practically free, I won't consider buying them by mail, especially if they have to be delivered in a Canadian winter. The last ones I bought sat on the front porch for four hours in -19c ( -2F) weather. They were well packed and I let them warm for a day before I unwrapped the package but even so they were doomed with a very neat split from end to end.

Jim