The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I am curious to find out if any of my collector friends here collect Cylinder records with the dealer tags pasted on the cylinder tube? I am slowly building up a small collection of nice dealer tagged cylinders from the east coast mainly New Jersey, Pa. and New York - like this one currently on EBay ( I already have this dealer ) Just another off-shoot of collecting cylinders I guess.

Yes, I pick them up when I can (and when they're reasonable). I think they're kind of interesting.

George P.

I also set such boxes aside. I have quite a few which I hope someday to be able to display.

Those, plus dealer tags on phonographs, record dusters, catalogs, calendars, fans, print ads, etc. - fascinating!

When a street address is included, they are lots of fun to track back via Google Street View. You never know what you will find...vacant lot, parking structure, modern behemoth occupying a whole city block, and every so often the original building. Current use of those originals ranges from super fashionable restaurants to nail salons to boarded-up ruins.

I once saw an Oxford Cylinder box with the mailing label from Sears...I actually ran the name and address using google. It has been about five years, but it was interesting to find out from a Death Certificate that this guy that lived in Wisconsin was born in the later 1800's, and died around 1951 and he was a butcher by trade. I think I had found info on a current relative, they may not of even cared to have had the cylinder, but who knows...maybe they would have.

I found about a dozen dealer-labelled boxes in a lot I picked-up from a Scranton antiques-dealer who does a lot of estate clean-outs. The labels were from two different dealers, one of which specialized in "Bicycles and Talking Machines" !

Most of these are flat-rim Gold Moulds w/o title info, only the record number; I don't believe many of the cylinders matched their boxes.

The one dealer had round labels that are pasted on the lids, the other one were pasted on the tube.

A dealer label with a geographical significance for me might encourage me to grab a given cylinder / box that I would otherwise pass over.