The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi,

I recently got this unusually shaped brown wax cylinder in a small lot that I bought on French eBay and am wondering why this brown wax cylinder looks like this.

Length and inner diameter aren't unusual. But the playing surface on both ends is much thicker than usual (probably the width that an unshaved blank was) and doesn't fit in any standard cylinder box. The middle of the record is thinner than a regular cylinder and the reproducer barely touches it. For more details see the photos. Unfortunately it is heavily moulded and as far as I could find out there is nothing recorded on it.

If you have any ideas why this is shaped like that, or maybe even have the explanation to it, please let me know.

Thanks!
Helmut

Great pictures strange cylinder.
it looks as if there is a recording on the thick sections i can think why but it would mean that a recording would play for a few seconds and then the reproducer would not touch the surface in the middle at the second recording would play after a minute or so.
it could have been professionally machined from a dictating machine cylinder which would be larger on the outside diameter, and it suggests a Columbia style of semi floating reproducer being used on it.
But why?

I checked it again, but there is no recording on any part of the cylinder, though it may look like on my photos. The mould is heavy but not as much to make a previous recording completely unhearable, like on heavier moulded cylinders. Also what looks like grooves on the middle of the cylinder probably comes from a test that a former owner made with a wrong or damaged reproducer.