The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello,

I found a 78 rpm record labelled Pathé that I would like to buy. I know that Pathé originally used a recording technique that was incompatible with Victor´s (vertical-cut). However, the song is from 1939. Can I trust that by this time the Pathé records were already made in the "standard" lateral-cut way? Thanks in advance.

Regards,
António

Unless it says "Actuelle" or "Needle Cut", it's a vertical cut disc, and would require a sapphire to play it.

Brandon wrote:Unless it says "Actuelle" or "Needle Cut", it's a vertical cut disc, and would require a sapphire to play it.

Not necessarily. European Pathé began pressing lateral discs under the plain "Pathé" label at around the time of the introduction of electric recording. Remaining vertical cut issues were labled "Saphir", indicating that the must be played with a sapphire ball.

'Thirties Pathé pressings generally have the "Columbia Circle" under the label, and are usually of quite fine quality.

Remember that in the Old World the Pathé label survived until well into the LP era.

If it's a 1939 recording, it'll be lateral cut. Pathé (outside of USA) stopped recording with vertical cut in 1932 I think, so anything after that will play on an ordinary gramophone or turntable.

Thanks a lot!

Pathé (France) started producing lateral cut records in 1920, and continued to press most recordings in both vertical & lateral cut. Both formats shared the same catalogue numbers, but lateral discs pressed between 1920 & 1931/32 will have an "X" prefix before the catalogue number. Some lateral discs also say "Aiguille" on the label, which means "needle", indicating a needle cut/lateral cut recording.
Unfortunately, once they stopped making vertical cut records, they also dropped the "X" prefix from the catalogue number, making it a little confusing unless you know the year of the recording, or which labels were in use during the 20s and later.