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Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:58 am
by epigramophone
Bearing number 29X and with a latest patent date of February 19th 1895, this 7 inch Berliner is undated.
Can anyone please tell me when and where it was recorded, or how to find out for myself?
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:17 am
by Charles Batchelor
New York, possibly 1897 but more probably 1898.
See "E. Berliner's Gramophone: Physical Characteristics and Label Iconography of the 7-inch American Berliner Record, 1892-1900"
Unfortunately no longer in print.
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:24 am
by OrthoFan
29X is listed on this page --
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/ ... erliner_29 -- but only a date range (Feb. 1898-Mar. 1899) is provided.
OrthoFan
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:06 pm
by epigramophone
Thank you gentlemen. I will happily settle for 1898.
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 3:06 pm
by MATTROSE94
1898 sounds about right. The Berliners I have with that particular typeset are all from 1898.
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:03 pm
by Dischoard
I posted a bunch of Berliners to Discogs and one of them, with the same font/typeface as yours, garnered this edit to the notes section:
"Label style shown in image, with four patent dates and fancy sans-serif typeface, was used exclusively on NYC recordings made from March to June, 1898."
No source was given but he seemed very confident

Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:52 am
by Inigo
That's nice... I never thought of making my database in Discogs... I have it in Excel... But maybe in Discogs you can also search by any field, etc... I have to see it with other eyes. How interesting!
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 2:01 pm
by Dischoard
Inigo wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:52 am
That's nice... I never thought of making my database in Discogs... I have it in Excel... But maybe in Discogs you can also search by any field, etc... I have to see it with other eyes. How interesting!
It's actually become a side-hobby and it's fun when I find that I have in my hand a disc that hasn't been entered into the database yet. There are a few users whose usernames have become second nature, not a lot of us collecting and cataloging shellac. But the cool thing is I can search through my collection using Discogs then locate it in my stacks as I keep notes on each release. Photos included. It's just that sometimes I forget to remove them from Discogs when I remove them from my collection, I need to get better about that but it's even hard for me to click "remove from collection", such a mind trip this collection thing is

Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 5:34 am
by Inigo
Even if I remove a record from my collection, I never remove it from my database... I simply add a key signature (the field code telling me where a record is shelved) meaning that the record isn't there anymore. But I still keep the data, for it's always interesting for help when dating other records in the matrix series, etc.
So in Discogs, you could simply add a note instead of removing the data. They are useful for someone else...
Re: Can anyone date this Berliner?
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 9:06 am
by Menophanes
Dischoard wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:03 pm
I posted a bunch of Berliners to Discogs and one of them, with the same font/typeface as yours, garnered this edit to the notes section:
"Label style shown in image, with four patent dates and fancy sans-serif typeface, was used exclusively on NYC recordings made from March to June, 1898."
No source was given but he seemed very confident
But consider this record of mine (No. 3404,
Jessie the Flower of Dumblane, cornet solo by W. Paris Chambers). It has an additional patent date (29 Oct. 1895 – not clear in the image), but the other features are identical to those under discussion, and the recording date seems to be 24 August 1897; admittedly the 7 is incomplete, but it clearly has a horizontal stroke at the top and I do not see how else it could be read, since it could not possibly be a 5 or a 3. Why would records made in 1898 omit the latest patent date shown in the previous year?
Oliver Mundy.