[78-L] One-sided lacquer disc

[Michael Biel]

On 5/29/2011 11:26 PM, David Lennick wrote:
> I came across this one today, in a collection I'd picked up years ago in
> Montreal. Steel-based disc containing a speech recorded in England, early in
> the war (the contents don't matter), with only a few fragments of the label
> remaining..lines on a white background and part of a stroboscope pattern. The
> disc itself is coated only on one side, a bit of flaking shows the silver
> colour underneath (and the thing weighs a ton and could do serious damage), but
> the reverse also has some kind of coating, dark copper in color. Why would only
> one side have been given a lacquer coating?
>
> dl
During the war there were companies which you could send your metal 
discs to have the lacquer stripped off and new lacquer applied.  Some of 
them offered a discount for single sided re-coats.  There may also have 
been some single sided discs available new to save on materials.  It is 
unusual to see this on a steel base which was rarely sold in 
professional-gauge discs. Most steel discs were thin home grade.  As for 
the reverse side coating, this might have been to protect the steel from 
rusting.  It could also be to give stability to the disc which might 
have strain on the material because of the coating being on only one 
side.  (That is why Durium discs have the curl.)  There were some very 
early British and European discs in the 1932-1936 era when some single 
sided lacquers had a dark blue paint on the uncoated side which had to 
be carefully differentiated form the lacquer coated side.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com