[78-L] Approximating 78s age by physical characteristics

[Ryan Wolfe]

The double sided Zonophones were introduced in 1908.    Zonophone is also one of those labels that had the early fast  lead out grooves I have one I have in my hand that is from 1910-ish.

As far as I know Vinyl 78's first started happening with WWII V-Discs, after they found that shellac was too breakable.   Then started sporadically coming out for regular home use, ca 1946.    Vinyl 78's aren't that rare, especially with things like promo and DJ  copies of the late 1940's, even labels like Columbia and Capitol that were still doing shellac, did vinyl for those.


________________________________
 From: David London <jusmee123 at gmail.com>
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com> 
Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2013 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Approximating 78s age by physical characteristics
 
Now that you mention it, yes I do have some modern Columbias that aren't 
laminated.  Those must be after the EMI merger you mention.

You mention vinyl 78s.  Yes, I have a couple of late Pye/Nixa 78s on 
vinyl that are indeed supremely quiet.  Wish I had more.

Lastly, you mention lamination returning in the early 40s to Columbia, 
and that gels with my thinking that what I call the "modern" laminated 
78, starts about the time of WW2.  The date we established earlier for 
lead-in grooves (1933) seems to confirm this, as all these modern 78s 
have lead-in grooves, but I have some Regal-Zonophone laminated 78s, 
that look modern in most respects, except they have no lead-in groove, 
and these have labels that I identified as being in used in the 1930s.  
This places them, mid 1930s when lead-in grooves a lamination must have 
just started to go mainstream.


On 04/03/13 10:14, David Lennick wrote:
> English Columbias were laminated until the EMI merger, as were Parlophones.
> (This is oversimplification since it doesn't tell when these labels began to be
> laminated.) French pressings of just about everything were laminated into the
> 50s, ditto Australian from a certain point.
>
> Capitol 78s were notoriously breakable in the 40s and got worse in the 50s, but
> they used vinyl for promotional pressings and usually didn't indicate this
> anywhere. Find a black vinyl Capitol and you've got one of the quietest records
> ever made. Unfortunately some of their promos were on thicker heavier
> "Superflex", designed for children's records, and these are noisier.
>
> There's a lot more to it..Brunswicks and their bargain derivatives like
> Vocalion usually weren't laminated, but exceptions turn up. When CBS bought
> ARC, lamination stopped for a couple of years and the early red Columbias and
> OKehs are quite breakable, till lamination returned in the early 40s. A lot of
> their client pressings, like Liberty Music Shops and Schirmer, turn up on noisy
> unlaminated shellac and quiet laminated material, sometimes within the same
> album. And at some point in the mid 50s, red Columbias became solid shellac again.
>
> Again, over-simplification.
>
> dl
>
> On 3/3/2013 6:59 PM, David London wrote:
>>>>> first laminated pressings
>>> Columbia and American were doing laminated pressings in maybe 1902 or 3.
>>>     The Columbia Marconi Velvet-Tone flexible plastic discs in 1907 were
>>> laminated. But Columbia was doing solid pressings as well until the
>>> introduction of the New Process in 1923.
>>>
>>>
>> I noticed you capitalised "New Process".  Was this the start of the
>> modern laminated pressings?
>>
>> Amongst all the modern (post WW2?) 78s I have, labels like Columbia,
>> HMV, Parlophone, Philips are thicker and nicely laminated, but some
>> still seem to be thin unlaminated - such as red Capitol label - the
>> later Capitol went to purple and were laminated. (a side note - the red
>> label Capitols all seem to have more surface noise as well) There's
>> probably a whole long story here, and it may well be country/continent
>> specific.
>>
>> Is it possible to put an approximate date on when the "modern" laminated
>> disc was first used mainstream?  Seems that nearly all later big band
>> era and jazz records I have are laminated, except a few, such as red
>> Columbia label from the US.  The impression I am forming is that the
>> main changeover to laminated was happening about or just before WW2.
>> The earliest I have noticed are perhaps some Regal-Zonophones from the 30's.
>>
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