Need help identifying this phono...

Phonophan,

Gennett record produced after 1919 are lateral.

Aeolian-Vocalion is one label/company The Aeolian part of the name was eventually dropped. The label was boughtout by by Brunswick in the mid twenties. A-V's are vertical to 1919 after that they are laterals.

1919 is the date when many American maunfacturers of vertical records switched over the the lateral system. due to the expiration of patents held by Victor & Columbia.

Also of note, not all vertical records can be played with a steel needle as Joe_DS mentions earlier. I am curious about what looks like a repair to the tone arm just behind the reproducer. I wonder if this was a homemade repair/conversion to a vertical orientation? Are there any makingas whatsoever on the machine anywhere?

Regards,
J.

Well-finally found the 2 px I copied off ebay. Unfortunately I didn't save any info, but this ones a vertical player too.




What a great little machine! I'd love to get my hands on one of these to play my pathe's. This one even has the same handle and different coloured plating on the turntable as Phonophan's.

Heres a link to one on ebay,with a bit of manufacturer info.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-Vanophone-G ... dZViewItem

Columbia HAD to make vertical records until the Columbia-Victor patent pool was signed. Victor's patent on lateral recording prevented them from making lateral recordings before then.

My vertical Columbia record is a Cal Stewart comedy record:
"Ticklish Ruben" / "I laughed at the wrong time"

The tune of "Ticklish Ruben" was used in the commercials for the game "Tickle Bee" in the early 1960s.

From what I can find out, the recordings were made in 1919, so I don't think it is a leftover from pre-patent-pool recording. A two-sided disc precludes this anyway.

But it does not look like a special pressing. The label information is printed with white lettering on a powder blue background, and the label is pressed into the shellac. There is nothing on the label to indicate it is vertical. It runs at 80 rpm. I don't think they would have gone to that much trouble for a special pressing.

I have two other Cal Stewart records. One is a lateral Columbia with exactly the same kind of label. The other is a lateral Victor made in 1915.

A 1973 issue of High Fidelity also mentions vertical Columbia records (which was how I figured out how to play it - I originally thought it was worn beyond intelligibility).

Maybe somebody goofed and recorded this record vertically. But I doubt Columbia still had vertical recording equipment in 1919, unless it was for a special need.

It's also possible that Columbia was selling double inventory for a while. From 1937 to 1948, Victor was selling triple inventory for classical music albums (in manual, drop-automatic, and slide-automatic sequences).

Another possibility is that it was intended for a foreign market. But it is printed in English.

There is another possibility: The record was intended for use by US soldiers in France. One problem the soldiers had was that almost all French phonographs were vertical at that time (Pathe was the major manufacturer). If this is the case, the war ended before the record was released.

This would be that special need.

Record-changer wrote:Columbia HAD to make vertical records until the Columbia-Victor patent pool was signed...

The events leading up to the "patent pool"***(1) were a very complicated affair, and the pool, itself, basically involved both parties "buying into" Columbia's newly acquired (1901) Jones patent #688,739 (SEE: http://www.google.com/patents?id=p9FuAA ... dq=688,739) covering the production of a wax based lateral recording system. This patent was actually what allowed Columbia to produce lateral cut wax disc masters, and was purchased by Columbia from Jones for $25,000 prior to the patent pool.

Columbia's first disc records are mentioned in this section of the Sarnoff's site's history of the Victor Talking Machine Co.:
FROM: http://www.davidsarnoff.org/vtm-chapter5.html

"Up to the Fall of 1901, both Edison and Columbia stood firmly back of the cylinder principal as against the disc. .... However, Columbia was so impressed with the improved disc record that, as we have seen, they introduced one of their own during the last quarter of 1901 under the name, "Columbia Disc Graphophone." It was not only a disc, but was also recorded by the Lateral Cut method ... and in styling was so close to the Victor product as to cause confusion. Further, it infringed the Berliner patent and Victor got an injunction.... Under this (cross-licensing agreement,) Columbia got what they needed from the Berliner patent, and Victor got what they needed from the Jones patent..."

----------------------------------------------
***Footnote Added 6/12/07:

(1) The recording process initially patented by Berliner involved the use of wax coated zinc discs. The surface was etched by the recording stylus, and then the disc was immersed into an acid bath until the groove was burned to a sufficient depth. This not only produced an extremely noisy surface, but the method, itself, was unreliable. This process is described here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/berlgramo.html#TG as well as http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/matrix1.htm

This was replaced by the all-wax recording method, the invention of which was credited to Eldridge Johnson:
"By 1896, a solid wax disc had replaced Berliner's wax-coated zinc plate. History indicates that the developer of this advancement was Eldridge Reeves Johnson (later to become the founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company), although he never applied for a patent. Bell and Tainter had earlier (1886) concluded that wax was the most suitable medium for any matrix, cylindrical or flat. Perkins, Kelly and Ward refer to the "Johnson all-wax process," which pretty well establishes its source. Jerrold Moore, in his biography of Fred Gaisberg, confirms Johnson's invention. One may note that the wax used initially by Johnson in the development of his recording medium was derived from cylinder records purchased direct from Edison!" (from above site--http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/matrix1.htm.)

The important phrase in that paragraph is -- "although he never applied for a patent." It was this improved wax recording process that the Columbia executives hired Jones (a former Berliner employee who had witnessed the process) to pursue a patent on--starting in 1897. After it was granted to Jones in December, 1901 Columbia immediately purchased it from him so they could initiate the production of discs.

Now, as far as the patent pool was concerned, it was NOT really a question of vertical vs. lateral recording. What the pool gave Victor was the right to use the wax based recording process--which Johnson had invented, but which Columbia had basically "stolen" from them. What it gave Columbia--among other things--was the right to use Berliner's playback method in which the lateral groove propelled the reproducer (or sound box) across the disc's surface.
-----------------------------------
Fortunately, all of this is well covered in the sites and books I've referred you to in my previous post ...so I'll say no more.

RC,
What are the catalogue & matrix numbers of this recording? Could you post a photo of the label? If it is a standard Columbia label from approx. 1919 the name "Columbia would not be printed in white. It would be blue inside a gold band. Prior to 1916 "Columbia Record" was printed in white on various colored labels-most commonly black excluding the "Symphony Series" recordings, which Cal Stewart would not be on!:lol:
Victor re-issued many of their more popular single-sided recordings on double-sided discs, I believe Columbia did the same. Anyone?
It would be, I imagine, counter-productive for any phonograph to produce records in two different formats simultaneously without labeling them as such. Grey Gull, Aeolian Vocalion, OkeH, Path

Unfortunately, the record is not in a place where I can get to it easily. I will have to move furniture to get it, and can't do that for at least a week.

RC,
It sounds like you have the same problem as me! Too much stuff & not enough space. 80% of my records live in a cupboard under the stair well, and every time I want one, it takes about 20 minutes just to move everything from out of the way to get to them. It's a royal pain in the butt! I long for the day I can have a small room to store only records. A record library has been a dream of mine for years.

Thanks, Neophone,

I have put those records into My Watch on Ebay.

I DO appreciate that Pathe records turn up from time to time on ebay.com in the US but for me at least that is not the same as them turning up for sale here where I can easily access them to view, pick and choose myself etc. like at a fair or flea market - I see loads of laterals but never Pathes! I also realise that pathe records in themselves are not that scarce or generally desirable which makes it all the more frustrating for a non-record collector like me (I'm predominantly a machine collector!).

The postage costs are horrendous for records from US too and there is always the risk of breakages and poor seller experiences. Oh, yes, there is also the little matter of the wonderful UK Customs people and the punitive taxes applied to anything coming from US!

I notice as well that there is a US dealer bidding on every single lot of these already - I had this experience before when i bought from Carsten with the same dealer bidding for EVERY Pathe record so my guess is these are already pretty well "covered" by him? I don't wish to get involved in a bidding war for records. I don't like auctions and i like ebay even less. I like to have some kind of personal contact when i buy stuff nowadays as there are too many rip-off merchants out there.

SO all i meant really was that Pathes do not turn up in a way that is convenient for a non-collector but interested UK buyer like me to seek out.

This raging debate over the Columbia vertical issue is very amusing!

I think that record R.C. is talking about will need to be shown before one ot two people on here will accept it as fact? Have we not had a similar exp. on another board VERY recently, guys?

Steve

This raging debate over the Columbia vertical issue is very amusing!

I think that record R.C. is talking about will need to be shown before one or two people on here will accept it as fact? Have we not had a similar exp. on another board VERY recently, guys?

The issue, as far as I am concerned, is not that a Columbia vertically cut record could have been made at some point. In fact, I've no doubt RC has one. As I noted in my previous post(s), there may be evidence that Columbia had made some vertical test pressings in the teens.

The key issue, for me, is the erroneous assumption that all of Columbia's early disc records--PRIOR TO THE PATENT POOL***--had to have been vertically recorded.

In addition to the actual recordings that survive from that period, there are a number of excellent histories of the early recording industry--available to anyone who wants to take the time to read them--that not only dispel this notion, but explain, in detail, exactly how Columbia was able to finagle its way into the lateral disc record market.


***finalized circa 1904
---------------------------------------------

Now, as far as RC's record is concerned, I was able to find the following on the online Discographical site:
From -- http://settlet.fateback.com/COLA2500.htm

Rec#: A-2923
Artist: CAL STEWART
Title: TICKLISH RUBEN
Matrix: 78555
Rec. Date: 07/??/19
Comp: CAL STEWART

Rec#: A-2923
Artist: CAL STEWART
Title: I LAUGHED AT THE WRONG TIME
Matrix: 78556=2
Rec Date: 07/??/19
Comp: CAL STEWART

This would be the standard issue (lateral) recording. It will be interesting to see how the numbers on RC's disc compare.

I listened to mp3s of those, and they sound just like the tape I made of the record.

RC,

Does the label on your Columbia look like any of these?

Columbia labels

Regards,
J.

It's close to COv2, except that the label is larger than a normal 78 label. It is the size of a modern LP label.

- The record has no lead-in or trip grooves

RC,

COv2 is I believe a post '25 English Columbia label. Is it more like this?


The date should read 1916. This label only existed for approx. three months in '16 according to Barr. It is somewhat rare. My apoloigies for the poor photo. You will note this one has no runout and it is most certainly a laterally recorded record.

Regards,
J.

Do any of you record collectors know if Marathon records are vertically recorded?