[78-L] Colored vinyl records

[David Lennick]

Royal Pemberton wrote:
> 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.)
> 

Noop..a lot of the early LP labels pressed on red (Alco, Artist..something 
about the West Coast liking colored vinyl, I guess). And I think they predate 
Fantasy or were at least contemporaneous. (Can't remember whether Fantasy's 
ten-inchers were red..were they?)

dl



> 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
>>>
>>>