The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Where can I find a complete listing of both Edison and Columbia brown wax cylinders?

As for Edison, I can cite Allen Koenigsberg's Edison Cylinder Records, 1889 - 1912; whether it's still in print is doubtful.

As for Columbia, the Online Discographical Project http://www.78discography.com/discography.html has recently added a section on Columbia cylinders.

I hope you find this useful.

Bill

If you do some digging on the Edison Papers project site, you will find the actual log books, hand written by Walter Miller, and Theo Wangemann for the brown wax recording sessions, I have it in a folder if you would like it off list. I am a technical guy on brown wax, that is I study formulations, molding and recording, but not much on discography.

edisonphonoworks wrote:tell me which one is the original?.

The photo is a little blurry which makes it hard to see some details. But, what about that one?
Second guess would have been the one underneath. They all look very nice!

Norman, That is the right cylinder. Thank you for the compliment.

This is onely something a brown wax junkie could find out.
It wasn't the color that gave me the hint but the inner spirals, that are finer than the ones of all others. Looks like a US Phono Co. cylinder I have. Shawn, keep up the good work!

Hi Norman, yes, I have a mold that makes a left handed spiral and the other a right handed spiral, at ½ thread per inch,. there is room in the future to put the other half of the spiral in, as if you look closely, brown wax, at least later ones , the records have a double start thread. I filed the spirals in the core by hand, it took about 6 hours on each one, and my hands were very sore afterwards! The Spiral makes the records come off the core easier, it aids in release, sometimes, the records will come out on the core, and you just unscrew the record off of it. The original factories actually didit that way.