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Blue Amberol Records



         


Blue Amberol Records are cylinder recordings manufactured by the Edison company in the USA from 1912 to 1929. See also: Edison Records


Package lid (left) and rim of Edison "Blue Amberol" cylinder

These cylinder records are made of an early variety of plastic patented by the Edison company called "Blue Ameberol", which was able to withstand hundreds, possibly over a thousand, playings, with only moderate increase in surface noise if played on well-maintained machines with a stylus in good condition.

The cylinders have a maximum playing time of just over 4 minutes. They can not be played successfully on older machines set up to play the earlier standard of 2 minute cylinders, as the Amberols require a smaller stylus to track the groove and the worm-gear which moves the stylus over the surface of the cylinder must turn at a different rate. The Edison company sold kits with gears and reproducers which could be attached to older varieties of cylinder phonographs by those who wished to be able to play the new Blue Amberol records. The Edison company marketed phonographs capable of playing both the older style 2 minute and the new Blue Amberol records; with these machines the user needed to adjust a lever (which changed gearing) and change the reproducer (which held different sizes of stylus) when going from one type of record to another. Other phonographs were manufactured which could only play the Blue Amberols, these were called "Amberolas".


"Amberola 75" model phonograph

The early issues of Blue Amberols are of higher audio fidelity than later issues. From the mid 1910s on, the Edison Company concentrated most of their research on improving the sound of their disc records, and their later cylinders are simply dubs of their discs. The dubbing technique used, acoustical-mechanical until the late 1920s, resulted in a somewhat hollow "dead" sound on theses cylinders compared to the original discs they were dubbed from. On many such cylinders, one can hear the sound of the disc machine being started just at the beginning of the record and of it being stopped just before the end.

The "Amberol" plastic of the cylinders is molded around a core of plaster. This plaster core has proved the greatest problem with long-term survival of Blue Amberol Records, as the plaster often tends to expand over the decades, especially if exposed to moisture or kept in humid conditions. The expanding plaster in less severe cases can make the inside of the record not fit properly on the phonograph mandrel (which can be fairly easily remedied by reaming the inner surface of the cylinder out), or can warp the cylinder out of round making it not play properly. In worse cases, the expanding plaster will crack or split the plastic playing surface, rendering the record unusable.

The Blue Ameberol plastic is highly flammable.


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Numerical listing (incomplete)

The initial number is the record number, followed by the tune or selection title. After this is the writer credits in parenthesis; "w." indicates writer of song's words; "m." indicates composer of a tune's music. After this is the name of the artist(s) performing on the recording.

Continued on Blue Amberol Records Part 2

List of record labels






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