Museum Talk

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

A new addition to the Buffalo Island Museum is a collection of Thomas Edison Diamond Disc records, donated by Barbara Burgess. They were named "Diamond Disc" because the matching Edison phonograph was fitted with a diamond stylus for playing them. The grooves on the two sided records are smooth and have a variable depth. They played longer than their competitors, nearly five minutes per side. The 80 rpm records are one-fourth inches thick and filled with wood flour, later filled with china clay. Some of the titles are Aloha Land (1917), Beautiful Ohio Waltz (1919), Fancy Little Nancy (1919) and Wait Until the Roses Bloom (1920).

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