Phonoland

Hi! I have some Victor 78s that seem to be pre-1920s by the serial numbers. My earliest one is # 16109 Last Day of School at Pun'kin Centre. Cal Stewart. Rural comedy. Does anyone have any Idea of values for these early records? A have a few more in the 16000s and then on up to 1900s. Thanks for any help!!

I like Cal Stewart.

Note that pre-1920s Victor records play at either 71 rpm or 75 rpm. They sound way sharp when played on regular 78 players without pitch controls.

Most records from the 10s & 20s can still be purchased in bulk at about $1.00 each. Or usually around $2. individually. There are exceptions like with any collectible. Certain artists, labels, genres etc. can get very pricey. I just sold a blue wax Columbia record for $60 on Ebay. Some go for much more. There are many sources for prices. One popular catalog for older records is called American Premium Record Guide. It is a good base and has some very useful information for beginning collectors. but is very incomplete as there were hundreds of thousands of titles recorded. Check Ebay. I find it a good source for what people are willing to pay. There are many sights on the internet that sell the old records but be carefull. Many are overpriced. Email me if you would like a pricelist of records I have for sale. sentjourn@email.com

Be aware that some of the earliest Columbia records are vertical. I have a Cal Stewart record which sounded awful until I realized it was vertical.

Ticklish Ruben / I laughed at the wrong time.

I've never heard of a Columbia vertical record. I did find this link regarding custom recordings. RC do you have some dates or catalog numbers? I'm very interested in researching this some more.

http://www.angelfire.com/nc3/talkingmac ... tical.html

Regards,
J.

That link crashes my computer.

Columbia made vertical records until they pooled patents with Victor around 1901. The vertical records do not have runoff grooves.

RC,

Crashed your computer!?! It works fine for me-I am sorry about that!

Regards,
J.

RC,

I believe Columbia may have experimented with vertical records, the did manufacture a toy graphophone 1899-1900 that played vertical wax discs. It occurs to me I have never seen a vertical Columbia graph. Many early records don't have a runout. I have hundreds that have no runout groove. According to one collector I know they di experiment with vertical recording however he doesn't believe they were ever released. According to his source these numbers were used for the experiment:

"I know Columbia was experimenting with vertical cut discs prior to 1910, but I don't believe any of those were released commercially.
Series:
7000s -(c. 1904/1909-1910)
8000s (c.1910)
14500s (1908-1909)
15200s (c. 1909-1910)"

I'm curious if the Columbia you had came from one of those series.

Regards,
J.

I am the lucky owner of a Columbia Toy Phonograph with the vertcal small brown discs.they are in no way comparable with the later Columbia discs, so I also assumed that they produced no vertical discs other then the Toy discs.
Would be interested to hear if there are other Columbia vertical discs.
Paul

Paul,

Very nice I hear those are very rare. Would you consider posting a photo? I've never seen one.

So far I haven't been able to find anything on commercially released Columbia vertical discs.

Regards,
J.

I will make some photo's this weekend, and try to put them on this site.


regards,
Paul

All Columbia records were vertical until the Columbia-Victor patent pool agreement in 1901. Victor had the patent on lateral recording, while Columbia had the US patents on vertical disc recording and on the disc record itself.

Columbia won a court decision which kept Victor from producing any disc records. So they came to a settlement where Columbia gained lateral recording, while Victor regained permission to produce disc records.

Columbia started recording laterally in 1902, but their earlier vertical recordings continued to be sold as long as they were popular.

Neophone wrote:I've never heard of a Columbia vertical record. I did find this link regarding custom recordings. RC do you have some dates or catalog numbers? I'm very interested in researching this some more.

http://www.angelfire.com/nc3/talkingmac ... tical.html

Regards,
J.

I finally got to see that site (It seems to crash either my Yahoo account or Netscape). So I tried IE, even thouch I will have to change my settings back again afterwards (IE is what I call a greedy program, because it steals settings for itself at the expense of other programs).

When combined with material I have acquired, it tells me a lot:

1. There were several "electrical" recording processes before the Audion was used for electronic recording:

- Victor's "electrical" process (patented 1902) was the electroplating of the master disc to make the metal master, metal mothers, and stampers.

- Brunswick's "electrical" system used an electric motor to rotate the recording blank, instead of clockwork.

2. Vertical cuts were used into the late 1940s for radio station transcriptions. Advertising was often cut vertically, as were some records intended for broadcast, but not distribution.

3. No consumer vertical-cut records were made after 1930.

4. Single-sided records were made until around 1912. But radio transcriptions and commercials made much later are often single-sided.

Record-changer wrote:All Columbia records were vertical until the Columbia-Victor patent pool agreement in 1901....

I didn't know Columbia manufactured disc records prior to 1901. Steven C. Barr in his The Almost Complete 78 RPM Record Dating Guide (III) lists Columbia's first disc record; #1 as being issued in '01....

Regards,
J.

Here the photo's of the Columbia Toy graphophone with the vertical records---I hope they are readable.