Rarest Cylinders.

[Oceanlinerfanatic191]

What is the rarest cylinder in your collection?

[Wahski]

Rarest - that's an interesting question.

To me all my cylinders are rare, because for the most part I only have one of each of them and have only ever seen one.  I bought my first two cylinders a few months back out of curiosity -as had never seen one in real life before. I purchased a few more from this fellow by the name of Mr Ebay -he seemed to have alot of them.

Found out there were different types :
-2 or 4 mins
-wax and something else
-they were blue, black, pink or brownish in colour.

I ascertained that just physically looking at them will only get you so far, as is very hard to work out the music by visually looking at little tiny grooves. (although would be really good if there was the equivalent of a laser player like can be seen at elpj.com  -but for cylinders.)  
So I ended up buying a regular Amberola 30 player as Archéophones are very expensive!

Since these 'musical dunny rolls' are over 100 years old, I am not as familiar with artists of the time or alot of the tunes. So not sure what is rare. Rarity could be because of number of factors:

-Limited numbers of cylinders created.
Earlier on before they worked out how to duplicate cylinders en masse, each cylinder was it's own take, a unique recording - so they would be quite rare. (acoustic dubbing method)

Those cylinders which people at home/business recorded (the blanks) on would also be rare - one of a kind.

Then once they worked out how to duplicate them in bulk (pantograph method) the quality varied on releases as the master cylinder wore out.
I found picture of Pantograph on forums here - fascinating.
 

Edison I believe wanted at least x3 takes for each recording and picked the best one to release. Then early in 20th century, (I feel old referring to a century where I was born) they developed Gold-Moulded duplicating process, so on most of these I think you can determine the take and mould number of cylinder from either the rim or side, eg ..27 = Take 2 mould number 27.  
I guess some of these might be rare/uncommon, as different takes exist & vary in quantity/availability.

Some series may be rare because of a not-so-common genre or just really low numbers made eg purple amberol series or a 3½" Pathe cylinder.

-Sands of time
Through the years many cylinders are lost, because earlier types physically wore out, broke because of the medium they were on and were extremely fragile. Some wax recordings have 'the mould' disease. The blue amberols are can be affected by heat, shrink/warp and split etc, so some might automatically become rare as few of those recordings remain in working condition.

I think around Dec 1914 Edison's plant/factory burnt down, did this fire consume any priceless records and prototypes? and we no longer have the 'masters', if anyone has releases of those the original was destroyed - they might be rare. I read somewhere Edison was working on an 8min long cylinder - but it never left the laboratory - that would be rare.
 

-Tyranny of distance
Some cylinders where I reside might be common, whereas if you live 'across the pond', these might be rare over where you are, and vice-versa.  Some releases were only in certain countries, "The Edison Phonograph Monthly" book refers to them as 'Foreign Amberol releases'.

There are many other factors that could make a cylinder 'rare'. I have no idea if any of mine are uncommon or rare, I have bought a few more recently (bulk lot) and are slow cataloguing them all (can see here - have about fifty yet to document.
Just wondering anybody else use Discogs (or something similar) to keep track of your cylinders/78s?
Might be able to find some rare cylinders listed on that site?

 

[Oceanlinerfanatic191]

14 hours ago, Wahski said:

Rarest - that's an interesting question.

To me all my cylinders are rare, because for the most part I only have one of each of them and have only ever seen one.  I bought my first two cylinders a few months back out of curiosity -as had never seen one in real life before. I purchased a few more from this fellow by the name of Mr Ebay -he seemed to have alot of them.

Found out there were different types :
-2 or 4 mins
-wax and something else
-they were blue, black, pink or brownish in colour.

I ascertained that just physically looking at them will only get you so far, as is very hard to work out the music by visually looking at little tiny grooves. (although would be really good if there was the equivalent of a laser player like can be seen at elpj.com  -but for cylinders.)  
So I ended up buying a regular Amberola 30 player as Archéophones are very expensive!

Since these 'musical dunny rolls' are over 100 years old, I am not as familiar with artists of the time or alot of the tunes. So not sure what is rare. Rarity could be because of number of factors:

-Limited numbers of cylinders created.
Earlier on before they worked out how to duplicate cylinders en masse, each cylinder was it's own take, a unique recording - so they would be quite rare. (acoustic dubbing method)

Those cylinders which people at home/business recorded (the blanks) on would also be rare - one of a kind.

Then once they worked out how to duplicate them in bulk (pantograph method) the quality varied on releases as the master cylinder wore out.
I found picture of Pantograph on forums here - fascinating.
 

Edison I believe wanted at least x3 takes for each recording and picked the best one to release. Then early in 20th century, (I feel old referring to a century where I was born) they developed Gold-Moulded duplicating process, so on most of these I think you can determine the take and mould number of cylinder from either the rim or side, eg ..27 = Take 2 mould number 27.  
I guess some of these might be rare/uncommon, as different takes exist & vary in quantity/availability.

Some series may be rare because of a not-so-common genre or just really low numbers made eg purple amberol series or a 3½" Pathe cylinder.

-Sands of time
Through the years many cylinders are lost, because earlier types physically wore out, broke because of the medium they were on and were extremely fragile. Some wax recordings have 'the mould' disease. The blue amberols are can be affected by heat, shrink/warp and split etc, so some might automatically become rare as few of those recordings remain in working condition.

I think around Dec 1914 Edison's plant/factory burnt down, did this fire consume any priceless records and prototypes? and we no longer have the 'masters', if anyone has releases of those the original was destroyed - they might be rare. I read somewhere Edison was working on an 8min long cylinder - but it never left the laboratory - that would be rare.
 

-Tyranny of distance
Some cylinders where I reside might be common, whereas if you live 'across the pond', these might be rare over where you are, and vice-versa.  Some releases were only in certain countries, "The Edison Phonograph Monthly" book refers to them as 'Foreign Amberol releases'.

There are many other factors that could make a cylinder 'rare'. I have no idea if any of mine are uncommon or rare, I have bought a few more recently (bulk lot) and are slow cataloguing them all (can see here - have about fifty yet to document.
Just wondering anybody else use Discogs (or something similar) to keep track of your cylinders/78s?
Might be able to find some rare cylinders listed on that site?

 

Wow, thank you for all the info, I never really used Discogs but I will for sure check it out. I never knew edisons factory burned down too.