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Re: [ARSCLIST] vinyl 78's
Correct that..I believe the shellac Mercurys were pressed by RCA in the mid
50s. This makes sense since their promo equivalents were on very thin vinyl of
the type that RCA was using for its Special Purpose and DJ releases.
dl
David Lennick wrote:
Yes..pop 78s on Mercury appear to be manufactured by Columbia in the mid
50s and are definitely breakable shellac, not the Merco Plastic of a
couple of years earlier. Mind you, Columbia may have been getting out of
the lamination process in the mid 50s, at least at some plants..I've
seen one or two red Columbias from this time that have been broken and
were not laminated.
But Clef 78s (all that I've seen) are still on some vinyl compound. Go
figure.
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
Hi David:
When you say "Mercury went BACK to shellac some time in the mid 50s,"
do you mean for 78's or microgroove? I have no Mercury or Emarcy
recording among many from that time-frame that appear to be pure
shellac but there is that strange vinyl-ish material for the Emarcy
jazz records. Was Mercury still pressing 78's widely in the mid-50's?
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick"
<dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] vinyl 78's
The majors began using vinyl for kiddie records around 1947 (earlier
in the case of Cosmo's "Tubby the Tuba" in 1945) and Victor began
pressing DeLuxe editions also in 1946 or 47. Decca put out a few
pressings on plastic as well (Eugene List playing the Rachmaninoff
2nd). I don't think there was much use of plastic for commercial 78s
until wartime restrictions ended, but of course V-Discs were vinyl
(except the ones Columbia pressed).
Victor put out the Stokowski "Gurrelieder" on its Victrolac compound
in the early 30s. Aside from their use of the stuff on 33RPM Program
Transcriptions, that's the only example I can cite of commercial
discs on vinyl at that stage.
DJ pressings used vinyl in the mid 40s, of course (except Musicrap).
Mercury and MGM seemed to have switched to vinylite (Merco-Plastic,
Metrolite) in mid 1949, and a number of other small labels went
along, while the majors stayed with shellac for the most part.
Anyone know why Mercury went BACK to shellac some time in the mid
50s? (Canadian pressings remained on Quality's vinyl-ish material to
the end.)
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
What's the history of vinyl 78's? I have a small pile from I think
the very early 50's, these are pop and country tunes. Was vinyl used
for 78's in any mass quantities previous to when vinyl LPs were
mass-manufactured? The "newest" vinyl 78's I know of are kiddie
records pressed in the mid-60's. Aside from novelty stuff, was the
medium used after the mid-60's?
Thanks for the coming history lesson!
-- Tom Fine