[78-L] blue amberols

[Michael Biel]

Ron Dethlefson would know, but I think it was said that the raw
celluloid tubes were ugly so they needed to be dyed some color, and blue
would do the trick.  The dying took place before pressing, and the long
unsupported tubes were just dipped into the dye vats.  But the blue
sometimes varied from almost black to a light robin-egg blue.  And don't
forget that the more expensive opera series were Royal Purple.  Some of
the celluloid Lambert cylinders were pink with a white inside, but many
were black.  Indestructibles and U.S. Everlastings were black.  Anybody
see any of those in colors?

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [78-L] blue amberols
From: Donna Halper <dlh at donnahalper.com>
Date: Thu, July 16, 2009 7:53 pm
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>

This month, I am teaching a group of adorable and very precocious 
immigrant kids (Chinese and Vietnamese mostly, ranging in age from 8 
to 12), tutoring them in English and helping them learn about 
American history/pop culture, etc. I brought in some artifacts of 
early media, like a newspaper from 1865, a children's magazine from 
1889, and a couple of cylinders... they were especially curious about 
the blue amberol I showed them -- why was it blue, how did it get to 
be blue, did the color affect the sound quality in any way, etc. I 
do recall an ad campaign from Vocalion Records in the early 20s about 
how "Red records are better!" But I am not an expert on cylinders-- 
like, why the color blue was chosen or how the color was achieved... 
We may have discussed this a while back, but I don't recall. Any 
explanations would be appreciated! 

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