Blue Amberol phonograph cylinder containing ‘Afton Water’ by Christine Miller, Issue Number 28128, associated with an Edison 'Amberola' phonograph, 1912

Thomas Edison’s distinctively blue ‘Amberol’ cylinders were released in 1912 after he acquired the US patent for celluloid phonograph cylinders. They had a plaster-of-paris core with a surface layer of ‘indestructible’ celluloid. Celluloid cylinders offered improved sound quality and were much sturdier than their wax counterparts, which could crack easily and wear down over time. The US patent for celluloid cylinders had been granted to Thomas Lambert in 1900, so Edison, who invented the phonograph, had missed out on these improvements in those 12 years.

Edison’s ‘Amberol’ cylinder had existed in a black wax format since 1908. It was an improvement on brown wax cylinders due to its finer engravings which allowed recordings of up to four minutes – double that of the wax alternative. However, this meant a finer stylus tip was required to fit into the engravings of an ‘Amberol’. Edison introduced the ‘Amberola’ phonograph to solve this, as well as kits that could be used to adapt earlier phonographs. The blue Amberol cylinders required further adaptations, with a diamond tipped stylus introduced specifically for them.

This cylinder contains a recording of ‘Afton Water’, written by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns and sung by Christine Miller, an Edison Records recording artist.