[78-L] Epic Vinyl 78's

[David Lennick]

Victor used Victrolac for some commercial 78 pressings in the 30s, notably the 
Stokowski recording of "Gurrelieder". (Ironically, I think the Program 
Transcriptions of the same work were shellac! Bob Hodge has a set.) As for 
Cosmo, I saw several shellac issues of Tubby The Tuba before I finally found a 
vinyl one (and it was gorgeous..I used it for the CD transfer on Naxos AudioBooks).

That quiet stuff Victor began using in the 50s cracks while the discs are 
sitting minding their own business. And Mercury and Dot were pressed on it as 
well from some point. I've also seen breakable US Columbias from the mid 50s 
(not that many, which has me wondering whether RCA sometimes took on the 
overflow).

As for Columbia's styrene, this one amazes me..I thought they used it only for 
budget LPs in the 60s (Harmony), but the other week I held a box set of the 
Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. Early 50s green labels, and one disc was 
typical vinyl (no raised edge or center) and the other was styrene. Huh!

dl

Michael Biel wrote:
> Sax Therapy wrote:
>> I just bought a collection of a few hundred 78's and there were a 
>> couple of Epic 78's that were pressed on vinyl like that on LP's. Can 
>> someone tell me more about 78's on vinyl.
> 
> If you are asking about 78s in general and not just Epic, the use of
> vinyl, celluloid, and other non-shellac-like materials go all the way
> back to the 1890s.  Some of the earliest Berliner discs before 1896 are
> celluloid.  In 1906 it was used with a paper core by Columbia for the
> discs they called Marconi Velvet-tone.  In 1931 Victor used celluloid
> with a thicker paper core to make 6-inch pre-grooved recording discs,
> and also used vinyl which they called Victrolac for their 33 speed LPs
> called Program Transcriptions.  Vinyl was also used at that time for
> Victor's 10 and 12-inch pregrooved recording discs.  During the 30s
> Vinyl was started to replace shellac for 16-inch broadcast Electrical
> Transcription pressings.  Some of Brunswick's ETs were pressed in a
> transparent blue cellulose acetate by Flexo, and some of the World
> Broadcasting System ETs were pressed in a very flexible opaque clay
> colored acetate material.  (This is why broadcasters incorrectly started
> to call cellulose nitrate lacquer coated recording discs "acetates"
> which is NOT what they were made of, and why they should only be called
> "lacquers".)
> 
> But back to 78s.  After a side=trip to celluloid in flexible discs like
> Flexo, and Durium plastic coated on fibre by Hit of the Week, the next
> major diversion away from shellac were the 12-inch 78s distributed to
> the military personnel as "V-Discs".  The ones pressed by Victor were
> vinyl, but a small amount were pressed by Columbia on their laminated
> shellac material.  Victor's vinyl up thru this time was black, but right
> after the war they came out with a beautiful transparent Ruby Red vinyl
> for their Red Seal DeLuxe pressings.  When Victor came out with the 45
> in 1949, they had a rainbow of 7 colors for each different series, such
> as blue for pops, yellow for childrens, and red for Red Seal.  Only the
> latter two continued on for more than a couple of months.  But in those
> post-war years there were some other labels that started using vinyl for
> 78s.  Cosmo claimed to be the first company using only vinyl, and their
> kids set Tubby the Tuba was claimed to be the first major hit
> exclusively in vinyl.  Soon most kids records were vinyl, although there
> also were celluloid sheets on printed picture paper cores, and stiff
> styrene on labels like Little Golden Records.  
> 
> The Columbia Lp was only vinyl from the very beginning, and this made
> the pressing of vinyl more economical for 78s as the material became
> widely used.  Styrene was also used  on pressings on all three speeds,
> and some grocery store LP labels like Varsity sometimes used a weird
> noisy material that was said to be a mixture of vinyl and shellac. 
> Victor introduced a beautiful shellac around 1952 for its 78s that was
> as quiet as vinyl and wore much better, but it was still breakable.  But
> 78s were being phased out, and during the last years both shellac and
> vinyl were used, some companies using both.  Most used vinyl for DJ
> copies, and the Victor vinyl DJ pressings were very thin with a sharp
> knife-blade edge, but their regular store copies in vinyl were as thick
> as regular records.
> 
> Mike Biel   mbiel at mbiel.com     
> 
> _______________________________________________