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Here is a freshly and carefully rebuilt Edison 4-minute recorder with good stylus. Records crisp and nice and audible. Good brass recorder body from an earlier recorder. 4-minute recorder bodies are usually potmetal and thus swollen and/or cracked and unusable, which was the case here. I omitted the typical upper gasket as this records better without one I found. Diaphragm is original.

I thought I had sold my last 4m recorders that I had saved from my days of intense collecting of recording accessories but since I've been cooped up these past few days and organizing I found two more in a small drawer that I had set aside to rebuild a long time ago. Too many projects.

I will upload the other once completed.

Price is $195 shipped to any continental US location.

The cutter diameter looks to large for a 4 min recorder. Any thoughts?

Rich Gordon

long_island_phono wrote:Here is a freshly and carefully rebuilt Edison 4-minute recorder with good stylus. Records crisp and nice and audible. Good brass recorder body from an earlier recorder. 4-minute recorder bodies are usually potmetal and thus swollen and/or cracked and unusable, which was the case here. I omitted the typical upper gasket as this records better without one I found. Diaphragm is original.

I thought I had sold my last 4m recorders that I had saved from my days of intense collecting of recording accessories but since I've been cooped up these past few days and organizing I found two more in a small drawer that I had set aside to rebuild a long time ago. Too many projects.

I will upload the other once completed.

Price is $195 shipped to any continental US location.

Out of curiosity: what sort of blanks did you record on; and with what reproducer did you play them?

- Bill

rgordon939 wrote:The cutter diameter looks to large for a 4 min recorder. Any thoughts?

Rich Gordon

I think you are mistaking the holder bar for the cutter itself. I thought you had a 4-minute recorder, Rich? They are set into the center of the bar. These photos should clear up any questions. Side-by-side comparison to 2-minute recorder with the 3rd photo being a ZOOMED-IN shot of the 4-minute stylus so you can see how it is set into the larger stylus bar.

Lucius1958 wrote:

long_island_phono wrote:Here is a freshly and carefully rebuilt Edison 4-minute recorder with good stylus. Records crisp and nice and audible. Good brass recorder body from an earlier recorder. 4-minute recorder bodies are usually potmetal and thus swollen and/or cracked and unusable, which was the case here. I omitted the typical upper gasket as this records better without one I found. Diaphragm is original.

I thought I had sold my last 4m recorders that I had saved from my days of intense collecting of recording accessories but since I've been cooped up these past few days and organizing I found two more in a small drawer that I had set aside to rebuild a long time ago. Too many projects.

I will upload the other once completed.

Price is $195 shipped to any continental US location.

Out of curiosity: what sort of blanks did you record on; and with what reproducer did you play them?

- Bill

I used a clean brown wax blank and played it back on an Amberola A1 with a Model M reproducer, using the 4-minute stylus. This has been my testing setup for all of the 4 or 5 4-minute recorders I have owned and sold. I acquired them all in a parts lot many years ago from the widow of a deceased collector who had started collecting back in the 1960's.

Much clearer pictures of the cutter Jake. You can see that this is definitely a 4-min cutter. Your asking price is very reasonable and this should sell quickly. And yes I have sold three of these myself.

Rich Gordon

To clear up any confusion about this 4-minute stylus, here are comparison photos for you: A control photo of an original un-rebuilt pristine 4-minute recorder and then a photo of the rebuilt 4-minute recorder for sale. The styli are the same diameter.

I wonder when they started making pot metal bodies on recorders?
I've only ever seen brass bodied 4M recorders, but then I haven't seen a lot of them anyway.
I don't suppose you still have the original or a copy of the serial number from the pot metal example?

Also, do any of your 4M recorders retain the yellow paint on their body?

I was once told these should be green like the 4M reproducer, but I don't believe that since I've seen other yellow examples since then.
My theory is that the recorder was painted yellow to match the box of the 4M blanks, and the Model H reproducer was green to match the green box of 4M Amberols.

Here's one with green top

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Edison-4-Min-cy ... 1438.l2649

It looks yellow to me
It appears to be a pot metal body though. All the green 4M reproduced I've seen look like the ones below