[78-L] Glass Compound 78s

[David Lennick]

Michael Biel wrote:
> But glass was
> rarely sold to the home recording market.  They used steel base and
> fibre base discs.  

But glass discs were used in those "record your voice" studios. And glass discs 
were available to purchasers who went to semi-pro stores..I picked up a large 
collection of home cut discs from the estate of a musician in the Toronto 
Symphony Orchestra, all dating from the early 40s. The Payette Radio catalogue 
out of Montreal was still listing glass base discs as late as 1948, and Rex 
Harrison breaks one in half in "Unfaithfully Yours" (either that or he's pretty 
good at snapping aluminum).

I was taken to record stores by my parents from an early age, and one time in 
1950 I heard a small girl say to her mother, "Mommy, is this a glass record?" 
I'd never heard of such a thing (although I'd broken one a couple of years 
earlier) and figured that was how Mommy kept the brat from breaking valuable stuff.

dl