This is a Thomas Edison Wax Cylinder Recording container. It contained an Edison Gold Moulded Record, produced sometime between 1906 to 1920. The container has a photograph of Thomas Edison on it., patent information and information about where the cylinder was produced, Edison Laboratories in Orange NJ, and who sold the recording, the National Phonograph Company of Orange NJ. The lid is leaning against the side of cylinder and contains the number 9780 printed on the top.
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Thomas A. Edison created the phonograph in 1877. His first recorded sounds were on sheets of tin foil. In 1888 he produced the first sound recordings using wax. By 1902 hardened wax cylinders patented as Gold Moulded were produced. The last Wax Cylinders produced by the Edison company was in 1929. Wax Cylinders, though, continued to be used for dictation or office use well into the 1940s.
