[78-L] Colored vinyl records

[Royal Pemberton]

I remember seeing a green 10" Fantasy LP, Gerry Mulligan I think.  I have an
early Dave Brubeck 10" that is on black vinyl.  The 12" mono Fantasys were
red, and I think the first stereos were on blue vinyl.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 3:17 PM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>