Brown Wax Cylinders

[Zenger]

Greetings. I have acquired a number of brown wax cylinders over the years, and with them a bunch of questions, which I have been saving up for a post. Here they are:

1. Without the original cases and/or title slips, and absent an announced title (in my experience, not all cylinders from this era have them), how can I tell the difference between a Columbia and an Edison brown wax cylinder? Do the inner grooves look different? The rims? Anything?

2. With the same qualifiers: How can I tell the difference between a studio recording and a home recording? (Some home recordings I have heard sound at least somewhat professional.)

3. I have some studio cylinders that are dark brown but are playable with an Edison C or a Columbia Lyric reproducer. What are these?

4. Were many more Columbia brown wax cylinders made than Edison? Almost every identifiable one I have is a Columbia.

5. In what years were they produced?

6. Are brown wax cylinders more susceptible to mold than black wax? In my experience, for every 10 brown wax cylinders I have found, 7 or 8 are totally covered in thick white mold.

My apologies if some of these questions have been addressed elsewhere before, but I couldn't find relevant threads, and I would find it very helpful to have all this information in one place.

Thank you all for your help!

[phonograph guy3435]

to answer your question on telling between edison and columbia, to the best of my memory columbia has 1 inner spiral and columbia has 2. this is reversed on concert cylinders of each brand though. with edison brown wax and columbia brown wax numbers, i have definitely seen many more columbia than edison, but im not too sure why that is. i hope you found this helpful