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I have a late electric DD #52514 My Man, Gladys Rice/ My Mother's Eyes, J. Donald Parker with the number 1929 in big red numbers stamped on both sides of this label. Sorry but no pic right now. Has anyone seen this? Was the red stamp done by the Edison Co at the factory or by a record store owner or jobber. My guess is it was trying to flag the record to a potential buyer as being new from the current year of 1929. I just took some pics of my DD with the stamp.

I have not with the 20 or so i have come across. Frow mentions that they stopped the stamping late in 1928 i believe. And never in red.

I just saw this pic of an Edison DD from from 1927, a very early electric with this type of red stamp. this record is in Australia, so this red stamp must have really got around! Maybe this was done as i said before by some jobber or record store to indicate a new or new electric type diamond disc. Maybe Mike Sherman mentions it in his Edison record book?

I've never heard or seen of such a thing. I've got about 400 electric DDs from the first issue up to the 2nd to last issue and none of mine have that kind of stamped info. If I were to guess, I'd think it's probably something a collector or dealer may have done, but again, it's just a guess based on what I have and what I've seen.

Sean

From the Fall of 1923 through the end of 1928, Edison used a 2 or 3 digit date code on many (but not all) pressings. The first number was the year, and the next one (or two) numbers were the month. So "39" would have been September, 1923 and "711" would have been November, 1927. The date code is usually stamped in small digits above the word "EDISON". It is often very faint, particularly in late 1928.

I have neither seen nor heard of a large red stamp such as that coming from the factory. I would tend to agree with Sean that this was something that a previous collector (or dealer) may have stamped on the record.

Sean,

I have a lot of Edison DD's electric also, but not as much as you! I've been looking for my favorite DD for years with no luck. I have only heard the recording of it on Youtube. I'm talking about Red Hot by the McAlpineers. If you have it, I would love to have it duplicated by Don Wilson so us collectors could have access to it.

Thanks, Marc.

marcapra wrote:I have a late electric DD #52514 My Man, Gladys Rice/ My Mother's Eyes, J. Donald Parker with the number 1929 in big red numbers stamped on both sides of this label. Sorry but no pic right now. Has anyone seen this? Was the red stamp done by the Edison Co at the factory or by a record store owner or jobber. My guess is it was trying to flag the record to a potential buyer as being new from the current year of 1929. I just took some pics of my DD with the stamp.

If that 1929 stamp is going to bother you or give you headaches; I would be happy to take the record off of your hands! It would go great with my Edison Lateral of the same song by the same artist!

Right on, brother in Edisonic taste, Marco! No headaches yet, but I'll let you know if they start. I just get curious in an archeological way about little things like that. Was it stamped in 1929, 1930, 1959, or 1999? And what was the real purpose? I guess we'll never know for sure. And if your Edison needle-cut records start to pile up and overwhelm, I'll take the excess off of your hands!

Mystery of red stamped years on Edison DDs solved. I talked to Uncle Vanya last night and he revealed the source of the red stamps on Edison DD's. It turns it was done by a collector in Indiana about 50 to 60 years ago. This collector was the grandfather of Charles Gregory, the late author of the Edison Diamond Disc Labels books. Vanya told me the name of this collector, but I forgot it. He started up a phonograph museum in Indiana in the early 70s. Maybe Uncle Vanya can fill us in on more of the details.

All of the discs which I have ever seen with these date stamps can be traced to the collection of Dr. E. T. Drake of Martinsville, IN.

His grandson, the late Charles Gregory, purchased many of his Diamond Discs at the liquidation of the museum. A large block of duplicates we're purchased by an Antipodean collector who appears to have passed in the late 2000s, and so these curiously labled discs have been circulating on the other side of the globe for some years now.

Charles' nearly complete collection of Diamond Discs was acquired by Nauck shortly after his passing, and is still being dispersed over the face of the globe. More of these records will be seen.as time passes.