[ARSCLIST] Fwd: [ARSCLIST] Records History

[Don Tait <Dontaitchicago@xxxxxxx>]

  Richard is correct about several companies having used vinyl for 78s to 
varying degrees, especially after World War II. Mike, RCA Victor (at least) 
introduced its "Red Seal Deluxe" series in 1946, before the company introduced 45s 
around 1949 or its LPs in the spring of 1950, so unless the vinyl 78s were 
kept in print after 1949 there was no competition.

  It would indeed be interesting to research whether any equipment 
manufacturer introduced lighter-weight pickups to play the vinyl records. Without having 
done so, I'd suspect that few if any did because the number of commercial 
vinyl 78s was small. RCA Victor may have issued no more than a total of thirty 
"Red Seal Deluxe" album sets and only a few vinyl Red Seal singles aside from 
the highly specialized "Heritage" series of acoustical vocal reissues. That 
would apply to home-use equipment because, as Richard pointed out, a lot of 
material supplied only to radio stations was pressed in vinyl. Professional playback 
equipment was apparently made to handle lighter tracking pressures. Does 
anyone know for sure? 

  I do know that standard home phonographs of the late '40s weren't kind to 
the "Red Seal Deluxe" records. They're quiet when they're in mint condition, 
but most that I've ever encountered that were played to any degree exhibit wear 
plus surface noise, all probably the result of the heavy pickups designed for 
shellac records.

  Don Tait
 
Dear Mike and List Readers,

As you've probably found, some manufacturers released vinyl 78's without 
notice or with minimal notice. I've seen Columbia 78's pressed in black 
vinyl with very little if any indication of that fact; and several small 
labels used vinyl, usually either black or red, most or all of the time. 
Many children's records were pressed in vinyl, perhaps in order to use 
colored discs, probably also because of shatter-resistance. Many promos for 
radio station use were pressed in vinyl, while their marketed versions were 
made of shellac. Most vinyl 78's seem to have been marketed after WW II 
(but there are probably exceptions to that observation).

Richard

At 09:39 AM 9/22/2005, you wrote:
> In a message dated 9/21/2005 1:30:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> It is worth noting that very few "78's" were ever pressed from vinyl.
> ***************
>
> At one time I thought the RCA Victor "Red Seal Deluxe" series was unique but
> since I've found that several manufacturers released vinyl 78 consumer series.
>
> It would be interesting to research how the use of vinyl for 78s meshed with
> the manufacture of lightweight consumer record players that could play them
> without damage and why anyone would buy them when they could get 45s or lps.
>
> Mike Csontos