The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

https://www.ebay.com/itm/167620389964?_ ... R-j14vv6ZQ

I'd like to express disappointment with Phonoworks on eBay. He is currently selling black wax blanks, which for those who don't know, heavily wear out your recorder. The only proper blanks are the higher quality blanks made by Paul Morris and others like Richards.

The blanks are cheap- and they sort of work, (faint and/or erratic) but please don't buy these. Shaving brown wax cylinders is a great option for cheaper blanks.

Phonoworks is a good seller. He is describing in exact detail exactly what he is selling here. It's sort of incumbent on the buyer to have a vague clue what they're buying. There have been numerous discussions here about using these for home recording. The seller even basically says right in the description that these are best suited for the PANTOGRAPH method of recording.

Apologies as you seem a decent sort, but in this instance it seems you wish to blame the seller for your lack of experience/ mistake. I understand that you are upset, but posting this sort of thing here seems really unfair to this seller.

Yes you are right George. I do tend to get annoyed and frustrated, especially with something like this. I'm sorry.

For the record, my label PhonoWorks at www.phonoworks.com has no association with that eBay account.

To my knowledge, the late Edison 4-minute blanks were a blend of brown an black wax so that the tiny stylus of a 4-minute recorder would not dive too much into the wax, causing a groove overlap otherwise.

It might be a good idea to rename this thread to get it off the stove.