[78-L] Metal 78 Stampers

[Alexandre Benoit]

Right before the Pathe pressing plant in Chatou (France) was taken down, 
several French collectors kept a friendly relationship with a 20 years old, 
naive  woman who was in charge of the archive. This was in fact a storage 
hall full of matrices and stampers. This young woman allowed people to take 
home metal parts over the weekend for copying.  
 
I was told that some guys took 20 parts with them and brought back 12. 
This is why metal matrices (with grooves) and stampers are not so uncommon
among French collectors. I have several of them, negatives and positives. 
This Chatou plant pressed for HMV and most other major labels. 
 
For one of these discs I have every production step: from the original lacquer 
to the pressed record. Both sides. 
In the end, Pathe did NOT sell the metal parts to scrap metal dealers, but rather  
kept the archive. Initially, collectors were thinking they were saving this stuff from
destruction. 
 
Alex