The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I know one often finds Edison GMs that are remakes of brown wax titles, usually using the same catalogue numbers; but has anyone been able to compile a list of release dates for these? At present, I can only date them very roughly by cylinder type (no title/ title, or ridged core/ smooth core). It would probably entail poring through catalogue lists from year to year to search them out...

Furthermore: I've also come across cylinders which were originally issued in black wax, re-issued on later-style cylinders (with, of course, the same catalogue number). Now, were these actually re-recordings; or did Edison make new sub-masters from the original molds, and modify them (beveling the end, and engraving the title) to fit the new style?

In the case of a popular song, where the original might have had piano accompaniment in lieu of orchestra, the difference would be easy to spot; but in instrumental selections, it's more difficult...

Any opinions?

-Bill

Bill,

To the best of my knowledge, there are no public records (i.e., discographic data) that indicate the rerecording (or rerelease) dates for 2-minute cylinders released with the original brown wax serial number. Nor any rerecording dates for 2-minute cylinders originally released as 2-minute cylinders. For instance, we can easily determine that William Redmond's 2-minute cylinder of "In the good old summertime" was originally released in September 1902, but there is no way to determine when Billy Murray's rerecording with the same serial number was recorded or released.

And it's probably even worse than we know! I'm sure that in many instances, recordings of brown wax and black wax cylinders were rerecorded by the same recording artist and released under the same serial number. Unlike a rerecording by a different artist, there may be no way to even be aware of the rerecording.

It is possible that Jerry Fabris, Edison archivist at the Edison National Historic Site, may be able to shed light on this issue.



Rocky

The Murray record is an interesting case in point: the copy I have is a smooth core cylinder; and from what I've seen so far in my collection, those seem to cluster around the 9200s to mid-9400s - meaning 1906 to early 1907...

Bill