What's Wrong with "From Tinfoil to Stereo?"

[phonogfp]

From time to time, a collector will discover From Tinfoil to Stereo and wonder why other collectors don't consider it their go-to book for information on the history of recorded sound.  Here are a few reasons that I shared once upon a time in the Antique Phonograph Society magazine...

 

George P.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tinfoilphono]

Thanks for bringing that article back to the forefront.

 

"From Tinfoil to Stereo" was in print for many years and there are a lot of copies out there, so they are commonly found even now. It certainly appears authoritative (at least the early editions) given its large page count, but that's all the more space for inaccuracies.

 

When I started collecting in 1961 FTTS was the 'bible' of the hobby. It was certainly far beyond anything available at the time, and the pictures were useful references in corresponding with other collectors, but the misinformation led most of us astray. I confess that I was hostile to Columbia for years due to the slanderous representation by Read & Welch. 

 

We are fortunate today to have such a wealth of well-researched books and articles. I still have the copy of Tinfoil to Stereo that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1962, but now it's just a nostalgic keepsake, certainly not a reference.

[phonogfp]

I'm with you, Rene.  I have a First Edition which was given to me by a buddy as a wedding present in 1976.  That's definitely a keepsake.  The 1976 edition which I bought to preserve the old one is well-worn, and I recently had to throw away the dust cover as it began to shed its color and make a mess!  I can no longer even browse the book without becoming annoyed with the blatant biased agenda it contains - to say nothing of the sloppy scholarship.

 

George P.

[Jerry]

I tend to think that it was the best they could do at the time. Without something like the internet and its "hive mentality" and archived data, what did they have to go from? It seems odd really, that this book was written not sooo long after the acoustic phonograph era, yet so much knowledge and historical facts had already been lost or contorted due to sketchy memories.  Oddly now, 100 years later, so much more is known. What will future historians think of our publications? Not to worry, I suppose, since AI will certainly have it all figured out... 😕

Edited yesterday at 05:24 PM by Jerry

[phonogfp]

Jerry, with all respect to the internet, lots of reliable information was made available to us collectors before its widespread availability.  I believe Eric Reiss's first edition of The Compleat Talking Machine came out in 1985, and of course George Frow  had already published a couple of editions of The Edison Cylinder Phonograph, along with The Edison Disc Phonograph.  Allen Koenigsberg had published Edison Two-Minute Cylinder Records, 1889-1912, as well as The Patent History of the Phonograph.  And of course Ray Wile's research and articles which appeared in the ARSC Journal over the  years were models of solid research.  Ron Dethlefson's books on Edison Blue Amberols and Edison Disc Records and artists can't be overlooked either.  And...if I may be so bold...the first Fabrizio-Paul book (The Talking Machine Compendium) was written without the aid of the internet.  (Our family didn't even have a computer until 1998!)  

 

When I began writing articles in 1981, my tools (like those used by the authors mentioned above) were reproduction catalogs (or originals when I could find them), correspondence with other collectors/researchers, phone calls to knowledgeable people, in-person visits to The Edison National Historic Site (now the Thomas A. Edison Historic Park), and trusted books like those above and others such as the Benjamin Aldrich history of Victor found in Volume One of Fagan & Moran's Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings.  It took lots of time, effort, and sometimes expense (books were never cheap).  Read and Welch labored under much the same parameters, but somehow arrived at different conclusions than other authors.  I don't ascribe this to the absence of the internet, but rather to having a pre-conceived agenda - especially in the case of Walter Welch.

 

The internet has made things far easier, much faster, and less expensive.  I'm not sure if it has always made the results more accurate, but as a researcher/author, I certainly do appreciate it. 

 

George P.

[Henry]

Many years ago, about the time I came into this hobby when I purchased my VV-XI (c.1980), I acquired a copy of FTTS. Even then I was disappointed by the dominance of Edison coverage, and comparatively little on Victor, my main interest. I remember reading into the book, but I got bogged down by detail which didn't interest me, so I returned it to my shelf where it sat for many more years, until one dayI donated it to the library book sale. It may still exist to spread its particular viewpoint and misinformation on to a new owner.; somehow I hope not.

[CrackedWormgear]

When I was in my “tweans” I first discovered FTTS at my local library. That was in the early 1970’s. Being an impressionable youth l was taken in by the propaganda. Later on in my early community college days I was able to find my own copy at a local electronics supply shop with SAMS repair books. From this later period I was able to really look what I had been reading and then compare it to the early printing of the Frow & Sefl book of 1983. FTTS is very biased pro Edison.

 

Some time later I was able to find Oliver Read’s book “The Recording and Reproduction of Sound. This takes us up to the state of the art in 1952. So there is still quite a bit of information on 78rpm discs. And early crystal and magnetic pickups plus tone arms.

 

Its also available on the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/The_Recording_and_Reproduction_of_Sound_Oliver_Read_1952

 

There is a whole chapter on the history of acoustic recording. And is not biased in the same way FTTS is. I think Mr. Welch had the most editorial control on the later book.

 

Another early library book available to me was Schlick’s Portfolio of Early Phonographs. Not totally accurate but the photographs were great to look at!

[Tinfoilphono]

When I was a very young collector in the 1960s Larry Schlick was one of my mentors. He was tremendously helpful and supportive. I remember he was working on his book during the time we corresponded. I can't remember his precise job but he was involved with printing, which was pretty complex in those days, since photographs had to be converted to halftones. He offered to make stationery for me, making a halftone of my Columbia AB for the header. I was thrilled with it. 

 

I still remember pictures he sent me following some of his buying trips. He found amazing things. Somewhere in my files I have a 2 or 3 page spread that was published about his collection in a local newspaper, with lots of pictures. He was a great guy. 

 

I was glad to finally meet him as an (old) adult in the early 2000s,  a long way from my teenage years.

 

Edit to add: Here is the article about Larry Schlick from my old scrapbook.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Tinfoilphono