The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hey guys, I just got my concert top works completed. I will be purchasing new concert blanks for a while until I can make my own. (My new ones will be a single thread spiral 2 TPI just like the Edison Concert blanks.) I have not made the mold yet but have a design for it. I will be wanting to do live Concert/Grand recordings at 160 rpm using later 1910 era advanced studio recording technology to see what the limit of Concert recording is. I have a small pulley and also the very large pulley that came with the earliest Concert machines. I also have the carriages for playing both Concert and standard size records, the top works was converted at some point to play standard records, so I have a slip over mandrel, (from an A/B) for recording and playing Concert records, and a standard size mandrel for playing and recording standard records. I made a prototype recording carriage that also can record standard and concert records with an original 1910 era advance ball studio head.

Just to clarify: "Concert" was the trade name Edison used for 5-inch cylinder records. "Grand" was Columbia's trade name for the same format. The generic term is "5-inch cylinders."

George P.

phonogfp wrote:Just to clarify: "Concert" was the trade name Edison used for 5-inch cylinder records. "Grand" was Columbia's trade name for the same format. The generic term is "5-inch cylinders."

George P.

Oh Yes! Columbia Graphophone Grand, Edison Concert.
From what I understand is that Edison was using the 5" format for some time prior to 1898. (I am very curious, how early and will look through lab notes to find out more.) 5" cylinders for masters, for pantographic purposes, some of them made from 5" electroplated molds.) The 5" records were used to duplicate the standard size brown wax cylinder on the pantograph machines. Somehow someone with insider information leaked all this to the American Graphonopne Company, obviously with exact dimensions and they decided to release it as a public format in 1898. Again it seems the spiral core can tell an Edison from a Columbia, The 5" format is opposite, of the standard size cylinder Edison's are single spiral and Columbia are double start spiral for 5" cylinders.

Well, it seems that the single double spiral information is wrong for Columbia and Edison on the 5" format. I have both, and both have a double spiral. What I do see differently on a naked 5" record, is the Edison Concert, the left, or non-titled end is more abrupt, while the Graphophone Grand record has a more beveled left end.