Phonograph cylinder

Uncommon card · No. 97441

Phonograph cylinders (also referred to as Edison cylinders after their creator Thomas Edison) are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Known simply as records in their heyday (c. 1896–1916), a name since passed to phonograph records, these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph. The first cylinders were wrapped with tin foil but the improved version made of wax was created a decade later, after which they were commercialized. In the 1910s, the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium.

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