TinfoilPhono wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2025 1:47 pm
The question about survivors is somewhat opaque, primarily because provenance is vague on most, and few have ever been recovered digitally. Here is an update on what I have found over the years, before and after writing my tinfoil book 25 years ago.
Edison National Historic Site - 4
- One was apparently recorded on a Bergmann Exhibition phonograph and was found in the basement of an employee's home in the 1930s. It is tightly rolled and may not be openable without damage. There's no way to know where or when it was originally recorded.
- Another apparently made on a Bergmann is wrapped around a board and mounted with rivets. Again, there is no provenance and no way to date it.
- One was transferred to the Site from Edison's winter home in Florida, found between the pages of a 1936 magazine. This very possibly might have been recorded on a phonograph in Florida as late as the 1930s. There is no way to know.
- The last is a partial sheet donated to Edison in 1929, ostensibly recorded in 1878. There is no way to prove or disprove this story, so it is doubtful.
Smithsonian Institution - 2
-One is potentially very promising, possibly recorded at the demonstration on April 18, 1878. However it was not retained at the time of recording, and was donated back in 1901. So that leaves it open to question. The Smithsonian attempted to digitize it a few years ago but the condition is too poor.
-The other may have been made on a demonstration phonograph but it was donated in 1923 and its origins are murky.
Library of Congress - 2
- There is very strong reason to believe that these sheets were actually recorded at the Henry Ford Museum in the 1970s and were retained by the then director of the LoC as souvenirs. Sam Brylawski confirmed that to me in the 1990s. They are very unlikely to date to the 19th century.
Syracuse University - 1
- This one is strongly believed to be a 1930s souvenir recording from the Ford. There is no clear provenance and the story that it was recorded on the original Kruesi prototype phonograph is easily disproved by the threads-per-inch of the recording itself.
Schenectady Museum - 1
- This is the so-called St. Louis foil, since it was recorded there. It has been successfully recovered and digitized, and may well be the only recording with solid provenance. A stunning survivor, obviously.
Henry Ford Museum - 2
- Though it lacks incontrovertible provenance, there is very strong reason to believe that one recording in their collection was made in Edison's lab in 1878 by Sarah Bernhardt. I have lobbied for years to get this digitized, but despite close contacts within the Ford Museum I have never been able to convince the Powers-That-Be to do so. I still hope it will be done someday. It's not entirely out of the question that it could even contain a snippet of Edison's voice, but that may be hoping for too much.
- A fairly poor condition recording was purportedly made in 1878 and was donated to the Ford in 1971. Without real provenance it's anyone's guess.
Edison-Ford Winter Estates - 2
- One is just a scrap, not a complete recording. It was donated in 1982 but has no clear provenance, though it is claimed to date to April 2, 1879.
- The other is a Bergmann-sized full sheet, signed by Edison across the grooves as "Edison Record Model 1877/78." This was probably recorded in the 1920s but it's not impossible that Edison may have signed an old sheet years later. The signature is typical of his old-age writing so it was not signed in the 1870s or 1880s. I have no reason to believe it's any older than the 1920s.
Private collection - 1
- The late Charley Hummel had a recorded sheet, but when he had it digitized several years ago there was nothing recovered from it. Nothing is known of its provenance.
British library -1
- Unfortunately I have no details on this.
Britain:
- a recorded sheet was sold at Christies many years ago along with an Edison Parlor Model phonograph.
Norway - 2
- The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo has two tinfoil phonograph recordings. One was ostensibly made in Norway in February 1879, and was digitized at the University of Southampton in 2009. It is only about 7 seconds long and contains what is probably the sound of a bugle. The other recording, ostensibly from 1882-1884 was digitally recovered by Carl Haber at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, MA, in 2018. It is more than 2 minutes long and has a lot of sound (speech, music), but it is largely unintelligible. There was a sound file for it online, but the link is sadly now dead. I was unable to decipher anything from it when I listened to it repeatedly in 2018.
- Tekniska Museet in Stockholm reportedly has 2 recordings, but I have no details.
There may well be a few more out there, yet to come to light. But all in all there are very few, and of those only a couple have any realistic provenance. The St. Louis / Schenectady recording remains the best documented and only intelligibly recovered example to date.
The Lambert talking clock recording is very controversial. It is not a foil recording, it is inscribed into a lead sleeve. There is evidence that it may have been made in the 1890s as an exhibit in a lawsuit. It cannot be categorically dated to the late 1870s.
I have a piece of recorded foil in my collection, glued to an exhibitor's advertising trade card. The indentations are clear but alas, it's merely a small scrap. Any sound that might be recoverable would be snippets too short to be meaningful.