SCARCE 12/06/1912 Edison Diamond Disc ADVERTISING RECORD matrix 2045-B

$

1,046

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An incredible rarity, an original Edison special issue Diamond Disc advertising record. Matrix 2045-B, recorded 12/6/1912.  Single sided.  No lamination cracks.  Reverse (blank) is flat and shiney.  No etched label stamping, just the matrix number.  First few lead-in grooves have wear, but do not affect recording, which starts shortly after.  Plays nice and clear with no ticking.  Aside from the first few grooves which show wear, I grade the recording quality a V+ via the VJM Record Grading System.  I have transcribed to the best of my ability the presentation of this recording, which I believe is spoken by Harry Humphrey.  Any words I could not figure out have been notated "***???***".  I have auditioned this record in its entirety on a modern turntable with a lightweight sapphire stylus.  

Here is the transcription, the recording is nearly 4 minutes 20seconds long:

If you are a close observer, you have already noticed that the Edison Disc Phonograph requires no change of needles. The reproducer point is a genuine diamond, carefully selected, polished, and fitted. It is never changed. In 1878, Mr. Edison invented and patented the first disc phonograph ever made. But this instrument before you is the first disc phonograph he has ever permitted to be offered to the public in his name. It represents 34 years of personal investigation and experimentation by Mr. Edison and probably marks the limit of human achievement in recording and reproducing sound.

In designing the reproducer for this instrument, Mr. Edison constructed and tested over 2000 different models. The material used in the record was selected with equal care. It is an entirely new material, possessing properties which have a very great cost to the excellence of the reproduction. The motor is many times stronger and more costly than any other motor. With the results that the beautiful tone qualities of the instrument are perfectly sustained at all times. Mr. Edison has conducted a series of exhaustive acoustical experiments which have resulted in new methods of sound recording entirely unknown to other manufacturers and very much superior to their methods.

As you listen to the reproduction of music by this instrument, you will notice that all of the overtones, or tone colors, are recorded and faithfully reproduced. Other sound reproducing instruments are not capable of this, with the result that their reproduction might bid of the fundamental tone and the moral and distorted and intermittent reproduction of nearly one or two of the overtones. Other records, compared with Edison Records, are like an outline-drawing without color, shading, or detail, compared to a finished painting with all the planes, tones, colors, and perspectives. For the first time there is a sound reproducing instrument, which truly reproduces music and does not distort it. The musical volume of this instrument is very much greater than that of any other. The so-called volume of other talking machines is a series of loud, false vibrations, produced by improper methods of recording and reproducing.

In as much as this instrument is capable of a real interpretation of music, Mr. Edison intends to make it the means of offering all the world's finest music to the American people. From month-to-month he will present purposeful programs of music, including the works of the great composers.... a revival of English and ballad opera and historic lyric. A review of the music of the nation. Gems of grand opera, the fine old songs so aptly called art songs. The best musical numbers from modern light opera successes, and all of the contemporary popular music.

The artists who make records for the Edison Disc Phonograph are chosen with the greatest care. They are judged by the standards that prevail in the musical centers of Europe. And include the finest voices in the world. When selecting artists, we disregard the bombastic claims of hired press agents, the illusions of stage-setting **?????**, or the charm of stage presence. We select only those singers whose art is so great, that the full measure of their power itself without being there. Artists whose voices abound in a wealth of color, feeling, and expression. Realizing that the Edison Disc Phonograph is an instrument, as it appears to the most highly cultured people, we offer in the design of our instruments pure types of the following schools of furniture: Adam, Jacobean, Sheraton, Louis the 15th, and Louis the 16th, in addition to a well considered type of modern Renaissance **????** to a mixed ***???*** of furnishings. Now if you will permit this instrument to play a record selected by you, it will more than prove all of the statements I have made............

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