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Bought a few original Berliner records as I just became interested after buying a Victor R.

I saw on eBay a few of these (see photo) and were wondering what they were and what era they come from. The records are brown in color. Are they 7 inches as well? They certainly look different from the Berliner’s I am used to.

Any information is appreciated! Thank you!

Those are Canadian Berliners. The ones I'm familiar with are 7".

Steve

I have one of those that I got from Arthur Pare in one of his record auctions.edisonplayer.

From what era do they come? The center label appear more modern than the USA Berliner’s I am used to.

KCW wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2024 7:47 pm From what era do they come? The center label appear more modern than the USA Berliner’s I am used to.

Well, Berliner lost the patent dispute with Columbia about 1900, so he moved his operations to Montreal about 1901.
I'm not certain how long the brown shellac pressings continued, but I'd guess your example is from around 1902?
- Bill

Canadian Berliner used the brown shellac up to the introduction of the double sided discs around 1909. I have the earlier 7" and 8", 10" and 12" brown Canadian Berliners.
The Berliner Gramophone Company from 1904 sort of used the Canadian version of the Grand Prize label minus the prizes at the top of the label. This is when the name Victor started appearing on the Canadian Berliner discs. I have even red seal label and and a purple label brown records. From around 1909, Berliner reverted to black shellac. I have even a brown label on black shellac made during the transition period.

it kinda looks like one of those chocolate records seen on the youtube channel techmoan, youtube doesn't work on my computer right now but here's a link to an article about it.

<img src="https://www.digitalmusicnews. ... ly Play"/>

This link works better
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/0 ... chocolate/
Aaaargh! Horror watching the stylus getting clogged with all that chocolate... These records wear out very fast.
I imagine the toymakers that made the 1900 playable chocolate records used a chocolate formula that was harder, as this modern soft chocolate record under the weight of a diaphragm would not work at all!