Indestructible Records

The Indestructible Record Company was started in 1906 by William Messer, who used to work for Thomas Lambert, the inventor of plastic cylinder records. They started making 4-minute cylinders (with 200 grooves in an inch instead of 100) in 1909. In the 1910s they started dubbing cylinder masters from disc masters made by Columbia, and also from Federal Record Corporation disc masters—also done by Edison (with his ) starting in 1915. They used Federal masters after Federal was launched in 1919 by Indestructible. In the fall of 1922, there was a large factory fire that shut down all cylinder production permanently. Production of Federal discs was stopped for a while, but masters were still recorded on and off, and Federal was bought by Emerson Records in 1925. Emerson still survives today as a radio maker.