The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I bid on (but lost) an eBay lot about a month ago which consisted of a ruby stylus for a Pathé disc machine. Today I received another eBay item, a Pathé vertical reproducer and tone arm, which seems to have a ruby stylus (this is a bonus, I did not expect a stylus at all). It is set in a plastic (?) cap which screws over the tip of the reproducer's stylus holder (you can screw it off and remove the nut which tightens around an ordinary sapphire stylus shank - there was a broken piece of shank, looks like same material as the ruby's mounting, which I had to fish out of the holder.

Does anyone know anything about ruby stylii for Pathés?

Jeff

Are you certain it is ruby and not a sapphire? They come in a range of shades from red to blue, with some being colorless.

estott wrote:Are you certain it is ruby and not a sapphire? They come in a range of shades from red to blue, with some being colorless.

No, just that it is quite red where all the others I have are colorless. Although the tone arm it came on is about an inch shorter than my machine needs (miscalculation on my part, it looked right, oh well) the stylus screws onto the arm I have and plays records fine, no sign of damage. The sound is perhaps not as loud as with a regular sapphire on a metal shank, but less harsh, not sure how much of that is the mount and how much the tip.

Jeff