The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I am a newby to talking machines and there reproductions. I have been playing all the disc's that I have gotten with the machines that I have restored and I have a dozen or more Columbia disc's but this one is different from the rest. It has what I would call guardrails for the recorded track. 1.) why did Columbia do this and what is the thought behind it. 2.) it is over twice as thick as other Columbia disc's that I have. I know that this is a stupid question for you guys but I have to know.

These rings do occur on Odeon and other discs I think around the the 1906-1910 period. I assume there is a patent somewhere and the Victor/Gramophone Co group were not interested in doing the same thing. I have always assumed that with early adopter of talking machines may have been helped by raised rings preventing the needle either sliding of the edge at he start or across the label at the end.

The Columbia's of this type are laminated and there is a thin layer of shellac composition on the surface on a paper backing and a filler that is noticeably stronger cheaper and less dense that solid shellac stock used by Victor et als. .

These also helped for when records were placed in a stack--it kept the playing surfaces from touching one another.

Columbia records of this era are incredibly bulky-looking, between the ridges and the paper filler.

And they sound pretty well!

Columbia used the raised grooves on their disc records until 1915 or thereabouts. edisonplayer