The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

hi can anyone tell me what is the deal with tungstone needles i see them come up on ebay now and then and noticed they fetch a few dollars for only a couple of needles. is the quality of them that good and how many discs can you play with one needle. thanks dan, winnipeg, manitoba, canada. where we have as many mosquitos in the summer as we do snow flakes in the winter.

They are a nice needle, and work well with any phonograph. I use the ones i have on my orthophonic machines. With a very nice condition record, one needle will play between 50 to 100 or more records, basically when they dont produce anymore sound or quility sound they are used up, but they basically are a semi perm needle. Thats why they are so expensive on ebay, they have a better sound and you can use them multiple times. I snatch them up all the time on there when i see them, you can never have to many of those so grab them.
But make sure they are real Tungstone needles, you will see sometimes people have a tin thats a tjngstone tin, and are full of needles but they are not tungstone, half the time the seller has no idea what they look like, they assume its a tungston needle and they are just regular steel needles. i cant tell you how many times i paid 35 for a nice tin and 8 steel needles
i always ask for pics or confirm.

Didn't semi-permanent needles come about as a way of conserving metal which was considered a war material during the Great War?

Semi-permanent needles were a necessity for the Orthophonic Automatic Victrola, with its record changer.

More likely they came about as a response to the semi-permanent stylii in Pathé and Edison machines. From what I understand they were in development well before WWI.

A little info on how Tungstone needles were made.