Blue Amberol Records was the trademarked name for cylinder recordings manufactured by the Edison company in the USA from 1912 to 1929. See also: Edison Records

These cylinder records, which were marketed as the Edison Blue Amberol Record, are made of celluloid over a molded plaster core. The celluloid surface was able to withstand hundreds of playings, with only a moderate increase in surface noise if played on well-maintained machines with a stylus in good condition.

The cylinders have a maximum playing time of just over 4 minutes at 160 rpm (a maximum of 4'45" is possible). They can not be played on older machines set up to play the earlier standard of 2 minute cylinders, as the Amberols require a smaller stylus to track the groove and the worm-gear which moves the stylus over the surface of the cylinder must turn at a different rate. However, with this in mind The Edison company sold kits with gears and reproducers which could be attached to older varieties of cylinder phonographs by those who wished to be able to play the new Blue Amberol records. The Edison company marketed phonographs capable of playing both the older style 2-minute and the new 4-minute Blue Amberol records; with these machines the user needed to adjust a knob or lever (which changed gearing) and change the reproducer (which held different sizes of stylii) when going from one type of record to another. Internal horn Edison Phonographs designed to play 4-minute cylinders were called Amberolas. The earliest Amberola model, the 1909 Amberola IA, was equipped with selectable 2- and 4-minute gearing, and after initially being sent out fitted with an unmarked Model L reproducer with a flattened fishtail weight that was recalled almost immediately as being "unsatisfactory", was refitted with the Model M reproducer with flip-over 2- or 4-minute sapphire stylii intended to play wax cylinders. There is at least one known example of an early Model M reproducer also fitted with a flattened fishtail weight. Upon the introduction of Blue Amberols in 1913, the M reproducer was supplanted by the Diamond A reproducer which was capable of playing only celluloid cylinders. Outside horn Edison Phonographs were available with the Diamond B reproducer. Several other Amberola models less expensive than the IA (and later the 4-min only IB and III) were available, such as the V, VII, and X. After the Edison factory fire of October 1913, the Amberola line was simplified in mechanical and cabinet design resulting in the Amberola 30, 50, and 75. These were equipped with the Diamond C reproducer. The 4-minute only external horn Opera (later renamed Concert) of 1911-1912, which shared the same mechanism as the IB, was initially fitted with the Model L reproducer (with sapphire stylus for wax Amberols), but with the introduction of Blue Amberols, shipped with the Diamond A reproducer.

Beyond sacred and popular music, Edison issued variants on the basic Blue Amberol including the Concert Blue Amberols (classical and cultured music), operatic Blue Amberols, Royal Purple Amberols (the series which supplanted the Concert series), Special A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H Blue Amberols (a few of which were given with the purchase of a 4-minute phonograph conversion kit), instructional records to accompany the Edison School Phonograph, ICS language courses, telegraph-related BA's, a 2-minute series of Blue Amberols for the Mexican market, and 6" long dictation instruction cylinders for the Ediphone that were essentially long Blue Amberols.

Thomas Edison's favorite invention was the phonograph. In 1877, he created a way to record sound on tinfoil cylinders by using two needles, one for recording and one for playback. The first words that Edison recorded were "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Ten years later, in 1887, Edison formed the Edison Phonograph Company to sell the phonograph to the public. This marked the beginning of the sound recording industry. The first records sold by the Edison and Columbia Phonograph Companies were on wax cylinders. These were brittle and broke easily. Columbia ceased production of wax cylinders in 1909 when discs became popular. The Edison National Phonograph Company continued making cylinders and discs until 1929. Cylinder records and other recordings made throughout the twentieth century are valuable primary resources.For the first time in political history, candidates in the 1908 presidential election (William Howard Taft, Republican and William Jennings Bryan, Democrat ) recorded speeches that were sold to the public. Many institutions such as the Smithsonian and Library of Congress are trying to preserve recordings such as these under a program called Saving America's Sounds.