The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have no experience with vertically cut disks at all (except with an Edison disk that I tried playing on my Aeolian Vocalian machine using a cactus needle - sounded good for all of 20 seconds or so until the needle tip was destroyed).

How do you tell if a disk is vertically cut?

Vocalian and Pathé both produced vertically cut disks, I think. I have received a couple of boxes of records with a number of Pathé disks in them. My little bit of research suggests that vertically cut Pathé disks are marked as 80 RPM.

So if a Pathé disk has no special indicator, is it safe to assume that it is laterally cut? The label below says, Sapphire Record." Safe to play laterally?

Etched-label Pathé records are verticals. Pathé discs with the rooster on the paper label are, as well. When it says Actuelle on the paper label, it’s lateral.

Sapphire also signifies vertical. The selling point is that you use a civilized and reusable sapphire - rather than the brutal cutting and slashing, one use only, steel needle.

PeterF wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:15 pm Etched-label Pathé records are verticals. Pathé discs with the rooster on the paper label are, as well. When it says Actuelle on the paper label, it’s lateral.

Sapphire also signifies vertical. The selling point is that you use a civilized and reusable sapphire - rather than the brutal cutting and slashing, one use only, steel needle.

Thanks. I will have to wait to play some of these records then.

The record label will usually give some clue if it's a vertical cut record. There's a number of vertical brands in the pre-1920 period. Reference to "sapphire" on the label is common. The grooves on such records also have a flush transition to smooth deadwax, with no runout groove.

Sapphire means that these records must be played with a special needle that has a sapphire ball in the point. Don't play them with steel needles or others because you'll ruin them.
the soundbox is also differently placed, and has the mica diaphragm looking forward to you, in a vertical position. the needle bar is also different, and has an angle for the needle to test on the record at 60 degrees.

Thank you all for the advice.

I tried my experiment with a cactus needle on one of the less interesting looking Pathé records in the box. I put the AV soundbox into vertical position and played both sides of the record. It sounded very good. It only started to get a little fuzzy towards the end of the second side when the thorn needle was wearing down. The experiment was much more successful than with the Edison disk. But I won't make a habit of this.

Now I might have to go looking for a Pathé sapphire needle. We will see how many Pathé disks are in the boxes and just how badly I want to play them.

Pathé record grooves are wider and shallow, but Edison discs groves are very thin and delicate. These are a different matter and cannot be played with the same Pathé arrangement. They need a special tiny vertical diamond point, and a cactus needle might ruin them because of'burning' the condensite varnish of which they're made... Pathé soundboxes are not suitable for playing them, although you may extract some sound from an Edison record, but much poorer than with their own system. Besides that, they are not designed to carry the soundbox and tonearm along the record, the Edison system used a driving threaded rod much like his cylinder phonographs.

Inigo wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:32 am Pathé record grooves are wider and shallow, but Edison discs groves are very thin and delicate. These are a different matter and cannot be played with the same Pathé arrangement. They need a special tiny vertical diamond point, and a cactus needle might ruin them because of'burning' the condensite varnish of which they're made... Pathé soundboxes are not suitable for playing them, although you may extract some sound from an Edison record, but much poorer than with their own system. Besides that, they are not designed to carry the soundbox and tonearm along the record, the Edison system used a driving threaded rod much like his cylinder phonographs.

Actually, Iñigo, as an experiment I played an Edison record with a thorn needle on a Pathé machine, and there was no noticeable wear of the record. The sound was quite soft, but on the positive side the thorn filtered out the clicks that are heard when playing with the Edison diamond (it was not a pristine record, it had some scratches), and reduced a bit the background noise. Surprising to me, the thorn lasted for the whole side of the record.

Inigo wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:11 pm Sapphire means that these records must be played with a special needle that has a sapphire ball in the point. Don't play them with steel needles or others because you'll ruin them.
the soundbox is also differently placed, and has the mica diaphragm looking forward to you, in a vertical position. the needle bar is also different, and has an angle for the needle to test on the record at 60 degrees.

Is that Pathé machine yours? It has a beautiful cabinet.

In general, Pathé offered really attractive cabinets in Europe and really boring ones in the United States. At least, that's my impression.

My apologies for wandering off topic! To make (partial) amends, let me note that a number of other labels adopted Pathé's sapphire groove, sometimes with acknowledgement and sometimes not. Disque Aerophone, Disque Diamond (I still wonder how Edison let them by with that one!), Disque Henry, Disque Aspir, Disque Ideal, (US) Rex, and Rishell are examples. US Lyric issued needle cut (as opposed to Pathé cut) vertical records for a while before switching to lateral; Par-o-ket is needle cut vertical.

interesting...
That Pathé machine is not mine , photo is from the web to illustrate the typical vertical soundbox.