[78-L] Pressed in WHAT material...

[Michael Biel]

From: "Martha" <MLK402 at verizon.net>
> But read the patent carefully - the inventor mentions that vinyl
> compounds may be used along with the "vinsol", plus other materials.
> So, "Victrolac" may very well be vinsol + vinyl + gawdknowswhat.

Read the DATE on the patent carefully.  This is not Victrolac.  The
patent application date is Feb 27, 1937 which is after RCA Victor ceased
using Victrolac.  Indeed, on Feb 15, 1936 they ran an ad on the rear
cover of Broadcasting magazine stating that Victrolac is and always was
Vinylite, which was a Union Carbide product.  Vinsol, the subject of
this patent, is something different.  

And by the way, DVL, the spelling is Victrolac, not Vitrolac, and the
10-inch discs in question in Dan Van Landingham's posting are Program
Transcriptions, not Electrical Transcriptions.  There is a BIG
difference in those two names.  The Prog Trans were commercially sold
long playing records from 1931 thru the mid-30s, while Electrical
Transcription is the legal name given to recordings of whatever size or
speed were recorded especially for broadcast purposes only. Never
confuse these two terms, which is easy to do because RCA should not have
used the Prog Trans name!  The 16-inch discs you saw from the WPA or CCC
were Electrical Transcriptions, but not the 10-inchers you have.  (Also,
I'm confused by the Atlantic/National section of your posting.  Where
does that fit in here??)

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  

 
From: "Martha" <MLK402 at verizon.net>
>> Victrolac - apparently a compound of shellac, filler, and a plastic 
>> material derived from shredded Longleaf Yellow Pine (Southern Pine)
>> stumps    http://tinyurl.com/ybvqpdy

 ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Van Landingham" <danvanlandingham at yahoo.com>
>>> On the subject of recording material:can anyone shed some light
>>> for me on a substance called "Vitrolac".I have some circa 1933
>>> long playing 10 inch recordings.RCA called them Electrical Transcriptions.
>>> I once saw some ETs in an antique store in Winston,Oregon;what
>>> I saw was one that was a disc that was by a symphony orchestra recording
>>> under the auspices of either the Civilian Conservation Corps or the Works Progress
>>> Administration.



Also,
> in a book I had read on the history of Atlantic Records,by Charles 
> Green,the
> Phillipsburg,
> New Jersey based National Records(owned by one Al Green)got into the 
> record
> business
> by furnishing discs that were made out of some conglomeration by a 
> National
> employee
> to other companies-until Green decided to cash in on the AFM recording ban
> by agreeing
> to the AFM's terms of recording royalties.He lasted until about 1951 but 
> had
> a rather imp-
> ressive roster which included Big Joe Turner,Pete Johnson,Billy Eckstine 
> and
> Eileen Bar-
> ton who had a hit recording of If I Knew You Were Coming(I'd Have Baked a
> Cake).Nation-
> al's first A&R man was Herb Abramson who helped Ahmet Ertugen start 
> Atlantic
> in 1947.
>
>
>
>
> From: Kristjan Saag <saag at telia.com>
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Pressed in WHAT material...
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Date: Monday, November 16, 2009, 2:37 PM
>
>
> Michael Biel wrote:
>
>> I do want to add that Berliner used celluloid for his discs in the early
>> 1890s before shellac -- possibly by 1889 but definitely in 1892 thru 94.
>> There should be some additional research done on whether Berliner
>> really used hard rubber at all. I tend to think that some might have
>> mistaken the celluloid pressings for hard rubber because hard rubber is
>> mentioned in passing in a Berliner letter (I think). I seem to think
>> that he might have experimented in having pressings made but found them
>> lacking.
> ---
> The additional research has been done and it surprises me that Mike Biel
> doesn't know, or want to know about it. It was presented by Stephan Puille
> at the 2004 German IASA meeting and is based on FTIR (Fourier transform
> spectroscopy) analyses. It clearly shows that Berliner used celluloid for
> the first pressings at The Rheinische Gummi- und Celluloidfabrik
> Neckarau-Mannheim (no commercial pressings whatsoever before the end of
> 1890), but after a few month changed to hard rubber, which was used for 
> all
> succeeding German pressings.
> This has also been said a few times on this list, and I'm seriously
> beginning to doubt whether our collective efforts would do much better 
> than
> Wikipedia, whose contributors, at least, seem to read each other postings.
> See
> http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:GszaHTLD7j4J:www.iasa-online.de/files/2003_Berliner.pdf+%22puille%22+berliner+celluloid&hl=en&gl=se&sig=AFQjCNH-6_XvNXYDJlQBUQ9_As32O0Jqlw">www.iasa-online.de/files/2003_Berliner.pdf+%22puille%22+berliner+celluloid&hl=en&gl=se&sig=AFQjCNH-6_XvNXYDJlQBUQ9_As32O0Jqlw">http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:GszaHTLD7j4J:www.iasa-online.de/files/2003_Berliner.pdf+%22puille%22+berliner+celluloid&hl=en&gl=se&sig=AFQjCNH-6_XvNXYDJlQBUQ9_As32O0Jqlw
> and
> http://www.iasa-online.de/bericht_2004.html
>
> Kristjan