Notice That There Are Not Many Survivors of the MC from the early 19080's or so?

Probably the biggest reason there are so few early MC cartridges is that relatively few were made compared to MM cartridges back then.  Even now, I am sure many more MM cartridges are made than MC ones.  Also, the high cost of refurbishing the cartridges made it less likely that a worn cartridge was retained.  They were either discarded or traded in to the manufacturer.  

They had mc cartridges in 1908?

How about a Signet MK440ML. Some ad copy from 1986.

“Signet is the audiophile division of one of the world`s largest phono cartridge manufacturers. It was decided in these waning days of the phonograph era to go for broke and design the ultimate cartridge. Every innovation culled from a decade of research appears in this cartridge. The MK-440ml represents one of Signet`s rare forays into a moving coil design.”

“Many moving coil cartridges track more poorly than their moving magnet brethren. Although the MK-440ml might not match the best moving magnet designs, it holds the groove faithfully through virtually any disc with which you might challenge it. Mistracking distortion is virtually nonexistent.”

“Buying a phonograph cartridge costing as much as two or three CD players may seem foolhardy. Yet even at $600, plus the cost of step-up transformers or pre-preamplifier, the MK-440ml rewards the faithful. The amazing thing about black vinyl LPs is that even in this age of laser scanned CDs, more sonic glory can be recaptured from the grooves than we dreamed. If you want to retrieve every nuance hiding in the groove, this super cartridge will make you leap tall speakers in a single bound.”

Use to own an Adcom mc decades ago, also a Denon DL-110 which is still being made I believe.

Funny timing

Yesterday I mounted my Sumiko Talisman S, I bought it because it has a Sapphire Tube cantilever, and a Van Den Hul stylus, and Imaging Specs.

I played 1 album, Betty Carter, 'Finally', sounded really good.

I will compare it to my AT160ML which has a gold plated beryllium cantilever with a MicroLine stylus. 

Imaging: both have tight 0.5db channel balance, both ^ 30db channel separation.

btw, I re-mounted my Shure V15VxMR with it's beryllium micro wall tube, .0005" thick, had to increase it's tracking force to 1.17 g on that tonearm, plays fine now, however, I compared and prefer the AT160ml which tracks at 1.25g. 

Imaging: that Shure is less tight 1.5 db channel balance and less wide 25 db channel separation.

I expected the Shure to be amazing as I recalled from pre-cd era when it was on a 3009 II arm on my Thorens TD124 TT.