[78-L] Colored vinyl records

[David Lennick]

Amen to the problems with transparent LPs and radio play. Incidentally, I have 
the "My Fair Lady" soundtrack on pink vinyl. Mono, but still sealed (yeah 
smartass, so how do you know it's pink? The inner plastic sleeve is still 
sealed, that's how). Open to offers.

And there were clear glass lacquers offered by two companies during WWII. One 
was Clear-O. I forget the name of the other, but Peggy Lee is shown looking 
through one of the discs in an ad in The Etude.

dl

Michael Biel wrote:
> Ted Kneebone wrote:
>>>> There are red vinyls in my collection, 78s, LPs, and 45s (RCA, 
>>>> Concert Hall, Silvertone). I think I still have some 45s in
>>>> yellow and blue. The color didn't seem to affect the sound!
>>>> Before getting these colored records, I didn't think it was 
>>>> possible to have anything but black!
> 
> Records in colors other than black go back to the FIRST records.  Beyond
> the silvery tinfoil, the first wax records were yellow.  Then they were
> brown.  Only after the turn of the century did they become black to
> match Berliner's discs.  One of Victor and Columbia's first disc
> competitors was American, and their discs were blue.  The first
> celluloid cylinders (in the U.S.) were Lamberts and most were pink, but
> some were white.  Of course Vocalion and Perfect records were red
> shellac, and in the 30s, there were the Columbia Royal Blues.
> 
> Joe Salerno wrote:
>>>> There were also some 78s that were multi colored - with the wildest
>>>> swirls imaginable.  Kurt Nauck had some pictured in his action
>>>> catalog some issues back
> 
> They are called "splash" records  I first saw those on George Blacker's
> wall perhaps 35 years ago.  Aeolian Vocalion put one of them out in
> red-white-&-blue to commemorate the "end" of of WW I, and something like
> 7 colors to commemorate something else.  And there was a short-lived
> series of Pathes that mixed the red and black shellac.  
> 
> And as for plastic, one of the first plastic record, Flexo, put out
> their discs in a whole range of colors, some transparant and some
> opaque.  The 16-inch Flexo Brunswick ETs were transparent blue, and
> since the plastic was cellulose acetate, the labels told you to only use
> the special acetate needles.  Among other things, this led the idiots
> who worked in radio to call lacquer discs "acetates"  Durium's coated
> paper records were brown.    
> 
>>> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I had read years ago
>>> that the basic "vinyl" is transparent and that something like
>>> lampblack is added to give the traditional black color. Different
>>> additive -different color.  Mike Murray
> 
> As for vinyl's native color, I understand it might be a yucky pale
> yellow, and the black coloring was to mask it.  But the fact that there
> are some perfectly clear colorless vinyl pressings might disprove that
> unless there is something that is mixed in that masks that color.  The
> Vinyl that World Broadcasting System used for their non-flex ETs was
> very slightly translucent purple.  Victor used black for their Victrolac
> and vinyl pressings until the mid-40s when they put out the transparant
> Ruby Red Red Seal DeLuxe 78s and their color-coded 45s. 
> 
>>> Grand Funk's "We're An American Band" was gold.
>>> Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr.
> 
> From: "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher at pdq.net>
>> The first pressing on the LP & 45 both were yellow (gold) vinyl. 
>> There was also a set of Beatles 45's made for jukebox use which
>> each record a different single color other than black. A reissue
>> of Harper Valley PTA was done in green vinyl. 
> 
> So once again, the newer generation's golly-gee-whiz of the gold Grand
> Funk "We're An American Band" is sooooo, sooooo lame.  There are
> HUNDREDS of rock-era 45s and LPs that came out in color vinyl.  It's no
> big deal.  Whoop de do!   The Beatles 45s were issued in the 80s to try
> to get SOME sales.  There had previously been some issues of the red and
> blue LP sets in red and blue vinyl and labels respectively, and I think
> the Love set came out in opaque white.  As for the Harper Valley PTA
> album in green, MANY of Shelby Singleton's Plantation albums came out in
> green, some were only issued in green.   All of these were done in too
> great a quantity to make them worth much more than the regular
> pressings.  It ONLY become substantial when they are one-of-a-kind, such
> as the after-hours samples pirated by a pressing plant worker.  Some
> early Motown 45s exist like this.  There was a recent discussion in
> Goldmine as to whether these records -- several of them are Beatles LPs
> that are currently being auctioned for BIG money -- are to be considered
> by EMI as STOLEN PROPERTY since the person who had owned them was the
> pressing plant worker who admitted making them after-hours and walking
> out with them.  That is stealing like a worker walking out of a plant
> with ANYTHING!  
> 
>  
> 
> It should be noted that DJs HATE transparent records.  In the mid-60s
> Columbia sent a bi-monthly release packet of 45s with each of the 7 or 8
> records pressed in a different color.  It did get them noticed, but I do
> not recall if any of them became hits.  (A friend of mine made off with
> the ones that came to our station!  They might still be in his
> collection in the original mailing envelope.)  But when they did it
> again with a mailing of DJ LPs they got reactions from DJs that told
> them in no uncertain terms to never do it again.  To explain what the
> problem is, it is difficult to see the bands on a transparent record to
> cue it up.  
> 
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  
> 
> 
> 
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