paradroid1793 wrote: Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:06 pm
By Salon do you mean Concert?
What is an Inter cylinder?
Great Question! To best answer it, I have put together a photo of the 4 different sizes of cylinders. Know there are many, many more formats and sized outside of these 4.
From left to right, we have;
Standard, Phenix, inter, and stentor.
Note that these are the technical/ Generic names (established mostly by the French market), they are better known by the names coined by individual companies, for example; "
Inter" cylinders are more often called "
Salon " cylinders, as that is the name it was given by Pathé for the English market, they mean the same thing.
"Stentor" cylinders are more often referred to as
"concert" cylinders because of Edison, or
"grand" cylinders according to columbia, they all mean the same thing
The standard size is the one that you find the most, includes regular 2 minute cylinders, 2 minute indestructible, blue amberols etc, they are all meant to fit on the same sized mandrel.
The Phenix size is truly the odd ball out of the 4, though I included it because of its striking similarities to an inter cylinder. It was introduced by and mostly sold by Georges Maleville from Liborune. The idea was that they would sell their phonographs for cheaper than their competitors, but the owner of the machine would then be stuck buying the proprietary cylinders made to fit only their machines, it is the frnehc equivelant of the "busy bee" cylinders in the US. Most of them were made in brown wax, though the one shown is a very rare example of one in black wax. Today these cylinders are extremely rare to find in good condition, they are sometimes found jumbled in with inter boxes, though suffer severely from mold (Heres a tip for finding one, they were exclusively sold in dark blue boxes!). Most of the ones I have found were completely white from mold top to bottom.
The Inter size was created by Pathé as a perfect medium between a standard cylinder and a Stentor cylinder. It was very popular in France, they are not necessarily rare, though not as readily obtainable in the US as they were never sold here, they were restricted mostly to France and the UK. They were mostly sold in black wax, though you can very rarely find them in brown wax. These cylinders are also notorious for suffering from mold, though not quite as bad as the phenix cylinders.
The Stentor cylinder is the largest of the realistically obtainable cylinders, though larger ones were sold
It was most popularized by Edison under the name "concert", they can be found in brown wax, black wax, and even celluloid, sold by the lambert company in both black and pink!
on the last photo I included a side to side of the phenix and the inter, as you can see the one on the left is juuuust slightly smaller
