[78-L] Pressed in WHAT material...(earliest Berliner sides)

[Milan P Milovanovic]

Well, here:

http://www.archeophone.org/Berliner5inch/

they said it was hard rubber:

"These records are not made of shellac like records made later, but of 
gutta-percha : an inelastic compressed and vulcanized natural latex or 
rubber isolated from the sap of several species of tropical tree, but mainly 
from Palaquium gutta. They are pressed from metallic matrixes"


BTW, please notice that perfect sound on this sample: 
http://www.archeophone.org/Berliner5inch/berliner-532.php

I really don't know what Berliner used to record his own voice, but this 
sounds almost like electrically recorded to me.

Best wishes,

Milan


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Pressed in WHAT material...



>
> I do want to add that Berliner used celluloid for his discs in the early
> 1890s before shellac -- possibly by 1889 but definitely in 1892 thru 94.
> There should be some additional research done on whether Berliner
> really used hard rubber at all.  I tend to think that some might have
> mistaken the celluloid pressings for hard rubber because hard rubber is
> mentioned in passing in a Berliner letter (I think).  I seem to think
> that he might have experimented in having pressings made but found them
> lacking.   I>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com