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Re: [ARSCLIST] vinyl 78's
Hi David:
When you say "Mercury went BACK to shellac some time in the mid 50s," do you mean for 78's or
microgroove? I have no Mercury or Emarcy recording among many from that time-frame that appear to be
pure shellac but there is that strange vinyl-ish material for the Emarcy jazz records. Was Mercury
still pressing 78's widely in the mid-50's?
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 8:11 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] vinyl 78's
The majors began using vinyl for kiddie records around 1947 (earlier in the case of Cosmo's "Tubby
the Tuba" in 1945) and Victor began pressing DeLuxe editions also in 1946 or 47. Decca put out a
few pressings on plastic as well (Eugene List playing the Rachmaninoff 2nd). I don't think there
was much use of plastic for commercial 78s until wartime restrictions ended, but of course V-Discs
were vinyl (except the ones Columbia pressed).
Victor put out the Stokowski "Gurrelieder" on its Victrolac compound in the early 30s. Aside from
their use of the stuff on 33RPM Program Transcriptions, that's the only example I can cite of
commercial discs on vinyl at that stage.
DJ pressings used vinyl in the mid 40s, of course (except Musicrap). Mercury and MGM seemed to
have switched to vinylite (Merco-Plastic, Metrolite) in mid 1949, and a number of other small
labels went along, while the majors stayed with shellac for the most part.
Anyone know why Mercury went BACK to shellac some time in the mid 50s? (Canadian pressings
remained on Quality's vinyl-ish material to the end.)
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
What's the history of vinyl 78's? I have a small pile from I think the very early 50's, these are
pop and country tunes. Was vinyl used for 78's in any mass quantities previous to when vinyl LPs
were mass-manufactured? The "newest" vinyl 78's I know of are kiddie records pressed in the
mid-60's. Aside from novelty stuff, was the medium used after the mid-60's?
Thanks for the coming history lesson!
-- Tom Fine