The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I found an Edison Record on Ebay I was interested in, but decided to pass after examining the photo. The damage to the record looks serious. Am I correct or do you think it will still play alright?

Are you referring to those grayish bands in the outer ⅓ of the disc ?


Aside from that, it looks to be in very good condition...

Yes, the slightly gray grooves do look suspicious. It likely will play, but possibly with an elevated background noise and/or distortion. Now, how much it will affect the overall playback quality is the real question.

A much stronger graying, more brownish, is usually an indicator that someone has tried to play it with a steel needle. This one looks more like someone previewed it a couple of times with a defective diamond stylus.

But without hearing it, it still lot's of speculation. If it was a higher priced record with no option to actually hear it, I would likely tend to pass unless I could not live without it.

It also depends on just how you plan on playing it. Electrically (on modern equipment), this type of damage may or may not sound as noted in prior posts, using different sized custom styli may eliminate the noise completely. On a Diamond Disc machine, it likely won't sound, but I would be afraid of this type of groove damage causing damage to the DD stylus, but that's just my paranoia perhaps.

Sean