[Phono-L] [SPAM] Edison Amberol question

[Robert Wright]

Hi group, quick question:  I just bought what I assume is an early Edison 
Amberol cylinder (two, actually, but my question is about only one of them), 
a 4-minute black-colored cylinder in an original box that is printed with 
mostly green  and some gold ink (including the matching box lid), Thomas 
Chalmers' reading of "Even Bravest Heart" by Gounod, #127.

What I need to know is what this cylinder is made of.  It appears, for all 
intents and purposes, to by made purely of black wax.  No cylindrical former 
is apparent, cardboard, plaster, or otherwise, and no end rings either.  It 
has a most immediate sound, with minimal surface noise (though only a bit 
more than a late Blue Amberol) and almost no boxy 'horn' effect on the 
vocal; one of the purest sounding documents I've ever owned, just utterly 
transporting (in spite of the rather stentorian performance).

I also bought a similar cylinder from the same collection, #372, "White 
Wing" by Manuel Romain.  This one sounds like most cylinders sound to me --  
a copy of a copy.  Where the Chalmers cylinder sounds like an original 
master cylinder (and it sounds like it was taken from the horn directly in 
front of Chalmers at the time, he's very loud compared to the orchestra), 
this Romain one has plenty of boxy 'horn' effect, like an acoustic recording 
of an acoustic recording.  Do we know for certain at which point Edison 
stopped recording with multiple phonographs per performance and started 
making multiple copies of a single master cylinder?  The audio performance 
truly is remarkably degraded on the latter.

But most importantly, my Amberola 30 stylus has a small amount of black dust 
on it after playing the Chalmers cylinder.  Is it indeed black wax?  Should 
I consider it a cylinder that has a finite number of plays left on it?


Thanks as always,
Robert