[78-L] Questions: 78 RPM production in the 1950's

[Michael Biel]

On 4/5/2011 6:02 AM, Kristjan Saag wrote:
> 78's in India, China, South America, the Philippines, South Africa,
> Russia etc. were all produced longer than in North America and Western
> Europe. Technology, although advanced in certain areas (Russian space
> technology, for instance) still lingered behind for large parts of the
> population.

When the Soviets introduced the microgroove long play in late 1952 and 
53 a large percentage of the first 200 issues were 78 microgroove.  I've 
got about 30 of the 8- and 10-inch microgroove 78s.  Those certainly 
were not meant to be played on the suitcase wind-ups still being 
produced!  Both the 33 and 78 microgroove long plays were vinyl and 
looked identical except for the speed marked on the labels.  They were 
all classical so went for the market of those who could afford new 
players.  There were no non-classical or non-political LPs for several 
years,until ethnic and jazz LPs started appearing in the early 60s.

But near the end of the 50s they started doing 7-inch 33 singles and EPs 
in both hard vinyl and  flexies.but no pop LP albums till later in the 
60s and these were rarely available for export so are not listed in the 
MK catalog.  These replaced the 78s they were still producing, and I am 
not sure how many appeared on both 78 standard groove  and 7-inch 
microgroove 33, but I do have a couple of examples of the same record on 
a 7-inch vinyl and a flexi.  They also were publishing a magazine 
Horizon which had a dozen flexies bound in -- and the final side was 
usually Western performer.

The 45 speed was unknown in the USSR -- there is a movie about Soviet 
kids getting some Western 45s and having to figure out why they sounded 
strange on their players -- then finally grinding down a motor shaft.  
The first Soviet 45s were a series produced ONLY for export and sale at 
Expo 67 Montreal.  I bought a copy of each that was still in stock when 
I was there and it wasn't till I was in Russia in the 90s that I found 
out how unusual they were.  At that time there were 2 or 3 12-inch 45s 
issued because imported turntables were finally easily available.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com