The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I received a vocal record today that the name of the artist intrigued me. Mabelle Wagner Shank. Granted I never heard of her before so I looked on the net. I found an article from 1929 stating that she had made several Edison Records and was conducting "tone test" for Edison. I am no expert on Edison or records, but isn't 1929 latter than one would have guessed that Edison artist might have been making tone test. In fact wasn't the acoustic era over then? The record # is 80380 and I haven't a clue of the age of that. Just curious about this tone test idea that late?

The information is in the lower part of the first page in a description of a play that was being presented. Evidently she was a coach, artist, and promoter.

Larry

http://pinckneylibrary.org/Dispatch/1929-11-20.pdf

According to the "Edison Diamond Disc Recreations" compilation put together by Tim Gracyk, Wagner-Shank appeared on seven DD discs: #50560, 50561, 80378, 80380, 80392, 80553, and 80554. The earliest coupling date shown for these discs is in 1917, and they all seem to have been deleted from the catalog in 1924. All of her 80000 series releases are listed as Tone Tests.

The Tone Test tours ended around 1925. It's unlikely that a Tone Test recording-- different from others sold as records-- was recorded as late as 1929.

-Miranda