The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I was able to go to a local antique show that comes into town twice a year. There was a dealer there who I have dealt with quite a few times before. I walked into his booth and he greeted me then reached under his table and pulled out a box for me. He said "I was hoping to see you here". I opened the box and saw the 2 minute cylinders he had brought. I was shocked when one by one I slid the cylinders out and they were all MINT condition. I have never come across a group of cylinders which I would consider absolutely flawless....but this was it. I don't know how or where they were stored, but I felt like I stepped back 100 years to see what a shiny black wax cylinder looked like when it was new. I just thought I would share the story.......and of course, I bought everything, regardless of title. Here are a few titles in the group

Angels Serenade
Chip of the Block
Scene at a Country Blacksmith's Shop
Hapsburg March
Waltz from Faust
A Teddy Bear's Picnic
On the Banks of the Rhine with a Stein
Virginia Reel
Shubert's Serenade
Rob Roy Mackintosh
Traumerei
Birds and the Brook




ColoradoPhonograf

Congradulations on your great find!!! I have some near mint 2 minute cylinders and am always amazed at how load and clear they play. I especially like the title introductions.
Pete

That's great - - you can really appreciate how good these machines sounded a century ago when you play cylinders like those. Congratulations!

George P.

Great Find!

Congratulations!

Nice Find!

It seems for every 15 2m cylinders I get, I wind up with only 1 or 2 good ones. Since your cylinders are so nice, Check them against the Cylinder Preservation Project at the University at Santa Barbara, CA . You may have a few that they are missing. I believe that they have all of the publicly available Blue Amberols, but I know tht they are missing a few 2 Minute Edison Black wax ones. I have a few 2m Black Wax from my own collection that I am going to send them to digitize. They will send them back to you, and credit you with the find. It it the Best cylinder website on the web, though they are a few others. They are literally preserving recorded history. All are freely downladable. I wish that I could reverse engineer and make my own cylinders from them! I am sure that soeone is already thinking of doing it.


http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/browse.php


PS: What did he charge you for them??? Just curious.

that record on the big foto is the edison military band with the virginia reel i just now listened to it from my digital sound archive
i digitized it 2 years ago here in the netherlands my copy comes from the jelle attema collection now 2 years on im still digitizing bits and pieces of this collection with every visit to my friend jelle

i must say cool collection of cylinders you have there absolutely mint!!!

greetings
tino

GREAT FIND!!! Yep - I too am having great luck with local antique shops and shows. Giving up on EBay & CL for a while. It's much more fun to just go out and "HUNT".

.

Wonderful collection! With these you can see why people like cylinders, those are very nice!!!! Some of the USB cylinders are not up to par, but many are very nice, I had a couple of copies that I transcribed that came out better, but I will have a chance to remake some of the cylinders I lost when I was a novice collector.