The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I had to purchase a few hundred more today from ebay and the wife was complaining along the lines of, "You have literally bought thousands of needles! At this rate we will have to buy millions during your lifetime".

So, how many needles do you use per week? Per month? Per year? How many do you think you have purchased since you got into this hobby?

Since I'm newer than most here, I have probably bought and used maybe 5,000?

Probably about 20 needles per week (1 needle per side). My gramophone listening is constrained by others in the house who don't enjoy hearing it. I also listen to Edison cylinders -- no needle changes required.

I have made a number of bulk buys over the years of 2500 to 10,000 needles since they are cheaper that way. I believe I have enough to last my lifetime.

I like Soundgen's needles. Good quality, reasonably priced.

I used to play 20 records a day (40) sides and that’s when I was a teen and off in the summers. I would run through needles quick, but Paul Ladd sold them to me for a couple dollars a packet, then I found Bry-O-Phonics for 1.49 a packet, that was in 1994.

Now I play about 20 sides a week, I use about 20 needles per week, roughly 1,000 needles a year. I have about 7,000 needles which I have usually bought in quantity. enough for several years.

I have about 700 Victor Chromium needles that are good for about 50- ish playings each. I think these might last awhile.

None. I only have Edisons



Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer

I've got enough to keep me going for a while

kirtley2012 wrote:I've got enough to keep me going for a while

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I wonder what that is ?

I have a big supply of large diameter old bamboo which will last decades for needles but yours doesn't look like bamboo ?

..... or do I misunderstand as always

poodling around wrote:

kirtley2012 wrote:I've got enough to keep me going for a while

DSC02410.JPG

I wonder what that is ?

I have a big supply of large diameter old bamboo which will last decades for needles but yours doesn't look like bamboo ?

..... or do I misunderstand as always

It is bamboo, admittedly a strange piece, but it makes good needles

gramophone-georg wrote:I have about 700 Victor Chromium needles that are good for about 50- ish playings each. I think these might last awhile.

That’s enough for about 35,000 sides, roughly 1.759 hours of music and about 72 days straight.

The following may be controversial and I am not urging anybody to follow my example; I merely report my own experience.

In April 2017 I bought one of the common BCN needle-sharpeners, a simple hand-operated device intended for preparing fibre needles. I decided to see whether it would work on steel needles as well. I bought some 1500-grit sandpaper (a very much finer grade than that originally used in these tools), cut a disc from this to fit the circular plate of the device, and tried it out on some 'Songster Pick-Up' needles – a type, designed to play fifteen sides, which I have used almost exclusively for the last thirty-five years. Altogether I recycled seventy needles in this way.

Since then I have used precisely one new needle (this being because my cat was sitting on the lid of the H.M.V. table gramophone in which I keep the re-sharpened needles and I did not want to tip him off). Otherwise I have lived entirely on the original seventy, some of which have been recycled three times. I use them on records of all periods from 1896 to the early 1950s* and have never encountered any ill effects. They will normally play about twelve sides each, so that they are nearly as good as new. I suppose I use one needle every couple of weeks on average.

Each disc of sandpaper will serve for about ten needles. With a new disc, twelve to fifteen half-turns of the handle of the BCN will bring a needle up to the mark; when the disc is near the end of its life, this will increase to perhaps forty half-turns. After working on a needle I inspect it by turning it round and round in a strong light; if I see a bright flash, indicating that a flat spot on the needle is catching the light, I sharpen it again; if it still shows a flat after three sharpenings, I reject it as beyond further use. I still have over fifty needles from the original batch. I test each needle on a run-out groove or a blank portion of the record before committing it to the main grooves, very much as one is recommended to do with 'Tungstyle' or similar long-playing needles. I have not yet ploughed up any opening grooves.

The Pick-Up needles are survivors from a bulk lot of, I think, 5000 which I bought in the early 1980s; besides their greater convenience, I felt these were more precise and consistent in finish than the single-usage needles then available which might well include a 'rogue' needle, with a jagged tip, in every box. At one time I thought I was down to 300 of these and almost gave up playing my records in consequence, but then I found nearly a thousand which I had put in a drawer when I moved to my present home in 1987 and had subsequently forgotten. Now, with the help of the BCN (which cost about GBP15.00), it looks as if I am provided for many times the above-mentioned cat's allotment of lives.

Oliver Mundy.

*These are all shellac records. People in the U.S.A. may not be aware that the vinyl materials used for some 78s in the 1940s were never adopted here in England, probably because so many people were still using acoustic machines and especially those of the portable variety.