The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi all, I hope I'm in the right place with this: I bought this tin of needles on eBay not for the bronze ones, but for the ones with engraved letters on, which clearly don't belong in the tin at all. It was rather difficult to make them out on the eBay listing and I was intrigued to see them. They have RADIO on one side and SSS on the other. Searching online, I see there was a German brand of needles called SSS Fursten, so assume the SSS is the maker, but not sure what to make of RADIO on the other side, and haven't been able to find out anything about them. Many thanks, Iain.

SSS had several types of needles, and maybe RADIO was the name of one of them.

Hi Iain,
Welcome to the forum. I think the word ‘radio’ would have been a marketing term. Not really any direct connection with a radio apart from perhaps a pick-up connected to a radio. Just a term that would have sounded modern and up to date at the time. I have a gramophone needle tin marked ‘Telephone Needles’ but these have nothing to do with the telephone but would have seemed frightfully modern at the time.

Jamie

Thanks guys. "I have a gramophone needle tin marked ‘Telephone Needles’ but these have nothing to do with the telephone but would have seemed frightfully modern at the time." That's interesting Jamie! I never would have thought of that as an explanation.
I'm enjoying photographing these more unusual ones with macro lenses and through a microscope so will look out for more with marks / lettering on.
Iain

Not precisely on-topic, but this from 10 years ago might be worth a read through, although sadly all the images are lost
viewtopic.php?t=18922
At the foot of page 2 I uploaded part of Harry Gaydon's Art & Science of the Gramophone which contains a lot about unusual needles.

Thank you, that's a fascinating read! It's nice to know I'm not alone in my interest in gramophone needle collecting It seems most people focus on the tins rather than the contents, which is understandable, but it's remarkable how much variety there is to be had with the needles too.
Iain

Yes indeed a very comprehensive list showing 29 different types of needles. Thanks for the link I missed it first time around.

Particularly interesting is Fig. 158 a glass tipped needle with 3 points that you turn as each point wears out. Fig. 160 is describing the famous Everplay tungsten needle.