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Re: [ARSCLIST] Re-Grooving Records?



Garr Norick wrote:
I Know of a Record Collector who has mentioned Regrooved/Recut Records in his auction lists... I asked him about this and he was very vague about it... said he knew a Jeweler who had the ability to do this and he sometimes had him do this to rare records in not so good condition to make them salable, but was very vague about it otherwise... does anyone here know anything about this technology? could they tell me? Thanks in advance :)

It sounds as though someone might have done some repair to a damaged groove. I've never heard of this being done to a shellac or vinyl pressing, but it was actually quite common for metal parts. A metal positive (mother) would have some sort of damage to a groove, and a skilled technician with a loupe and a (presumably jeweled) stylus tool would re-engrave the groove at that point by hand.


Dr. Oliver Read's book on sound recording has a photographic explanation of the whole process for mastering, plating and stamping phonorecords, and this groove repair process is illustrated. The record illustrated in this process appears to be MICROGROOVE, so someone somewhere learned to have very steady hands and nerves.

(I suppose it was cheaper to do it that way than just recut the lacquer and do new platings?)

Michael Shoshani
Chicago IL


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