Greg: Edison 2-minute cylinders are all made from wax. The Gold Moulded ones (made starting early 1902) are black. The earlier cylinders are brown in color and usually don't have a title printed on the end. The grooves on 2-minute cylinders are much wider than those on 4-minute wax Amberol records and 4-minute plastic Blue Amberol records. The four minute grooves are extremely fine and difficult to see. I think the 2-minute records have 100 grooves per inch and the 4-minute have 200.
2-minute cylinders are usually very hard to come by as compared to Blue Amberols. When you do find them, they are more often than not damaged by mold. If the mold coverage is severe, they are rendered unplayable. Also, the wax cylinders break very easily. Undamaged, clean wax records are often very pricey as compared to Blue Amberols. This is why you usually find 2-minute cylinder machines priced well-below their 2/4 and 4-minute cousins. -Phil O'Keefe Visit my Edison Phonograph Website http://www.engineeringexpert.net/edphono.htm On 7/6/04 9:18 PM, "Greg" <[email protected]> wrote: > I have a 2 minute only Edison Standard in my collection. I recently > picked up a Columbia Eagle B; also 2 minute only. I would like to > purchase some additional 2 minute cylinder recordings but I am confused > as to how I can distinguish them from the 4 minute records. They are not > always properly identified on eBay. It's very confusing. > > I know that all Blue Amberols are 4 minute. I need an easy and > fool-proof way to identify 2 minute records. E.g., are all "Gold > Moulded" records 2 minute? > > > > Greg > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-l mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.oldcrank.com/mailman/listinfo/phono-l_oldcrank.com >
