[78-L] Colored vinyl records

Fri Dec 18 13:49:03 PST 2009

I have "The Dave Brubeck Trio" (Fantasy 3-2) on green vinyl and "Jazz Interwoven" (Fantasy 3-20) is on purple vinyl. 

Cary Ginell

> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:20:30 -0600
> From: ampex354 at gmail.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Colored vinyl records
> 
> 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
> > >>>
> > >>>
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