[78-L] Length of Durium Hit of the Weed recordings?

[Dennis Flannigan]

I'll start with, Thank You to all who suggested how to play a warped,
excellent condition Durium paper recording.
All the advice I got was helpful. Clothespins popped off, and other
solutions didn't quite work. What did work, was
clamping the disc down overnight with a 10" reel to reel hub, which took
out most of the warp. Then, I recorded it. Seemed a little slow, but not
bad. When the recording reached five minutes, I wondered what's going on
here. How can this paper disc be so long?

Then, concerning long playing time for 78s, today's 78-l posting provides
the following about squeezing music onto a 78 rpm recording:

"Not that difficult if they filtered the bass and used a tight groove
pitch. Hit of the Weeks ran over 5 minutes in the last year, and last week
I sold an ARC Theatre Use Record from 1931 that played over 5'."  dl

Does anyone know the actual time of the Vernon Dalhart's, "Letter Edged in
Black, on Durium, #9-2. Even shortened to what I think is pretty close to
actual time it is well over four minutes, and now I'm thinking maybe the
five minute recording was really five minutes. Help!

Dennis