The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Since I had the camera out I took a picture of some Columbia boxes just for the heck of it. The one one the left is a brown wax box. I like the colours. The second one mentions Toronto in the long list of Columbia branch locations so I like that too
Jim.

Columbia cylinders are a source of frustration for me. The 4-minute cylinders skip due to shrinkage, and the 2-minutes often sound so dreadful that I have to run--not walk-- to the phonograph to remove the cylinder.

We've discussed the problem with the 4-minutes, but we've never discussed the issue with the 2-minutes. They don't skip. The problem is that the sound will often waver in and out in such a manner that the result is plain terrible. There's nothing wrong with the reproducer; the Edison cylinders play fine.




Rocky

Rocky,
I've never had that problem with 2 min indestructibles, so I'm guessing you must be playing yours with a sapphire stylus?

gramophoneshane wrote:Rocky,
I've never had that problem with 2 min indestructibles, so I'm guessing you must be playing yours with a sapphire stylus?

Yes. I'm referring to 2-minute Columbia wax cylinders played with a Model C reproducer.

Rocky

Trivia. If you look closely at the phonograph on the first box, the spelling is GraphAphone. I'm not sure how this got past the Columbia QA folks??

fonograph wrote:Trivia. If you look closely at the phonograph on the first box, the spelling is GraphAphone. I'm not sure how this got past the Columbia QA folks??

If you click on the image to view it larger, in my opinion it appears to say ‘Graphophone’.

But the middle box has ‘Recor’ instead of ‘Record’ in the top line of text. Ooops.

— MordEth

MordEth wrote:

fonograph wrote:Trivia. If you look closely at the phonograph on the first box, the spelling is GraphAphone. I'm not sure how this got past the Columbia QA folks??

If you click on the image to view it larger, in my opinion it appears to say ‘Graphophone’.

But the middle box has ‘Recor’ instead of ‘Record’ in the top line of text. Ooops.

— MordEth

I was actually going to bring this up but Fonograph beat me to it In many of the earlier boxes, "Graphophone is spelled Graphaphone. As you can see in my picture below. Thanks for bringing it up, Fonograph! I have often wondered how long this mistake was passed by, and what other mistake slipped through the system.

Aaron

I'd guess that about half the early Columbia boxes I've seen have the mispelled name, so evidently the mistake wasn't noticed for quite awhile!

George P.

EdisonSquirrel wrote:

gramophoneshane wrote:Rocky,
I've never had that problem with 2 min indestructibles, so I'm guessing you must be playing yours with a sapphire stylus?

Yes. I'm referring to 2-minute Columbia wax cylinders played with a Model C reproducer.

Rocky

Rocky, I'm not sure what you are doing wrong. I play 2 min indestructibles and assuming the records are in good shape, they sound great. Could it be that the model C is not quite as responsive as it needs to be? Normally I'm playing mine with an O or an M.

I have a feeling that what's happening is the 2 min records are shrinking the same as the 4 mins, but not enough to make them ship a groove. I'd say that this shrinkage causes the groove walls to pull in closer, which means the sapphire rides up (is lifted by the walls) from the bottom of the groove, causing the wavering sound to occur.
I'm betting that if Rocky plays those same cylinders with a conical diamond stylus, the stylus will sit firmly in the bottom of the groove & they'll sound perfect.