[78-L] Colored vinyl records

[Royal Pemberton]

Wasn't Fantasy the first label to offer LPs in colours other than black or
red?  (Unless Audiophile was making red vinyl LPs before Fantasy began.)

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 2:16 PM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> 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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