Re: [ARSCLIST] vinyl 78's

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For starters, the only 78s that are truly unbreakable are the ones made for 
mood music libraries (Chappell, Boosey & Hawkes et al) in the 50s and Capitol's 
"Superflex" kids records in the 40s. Everything else can be cracked by putting 
your thumbnails together and pushing up..experimenting this way on unwanted 
discs is a good way to learn which ones will and which ones won't. Even Decca 
LPs from the mid 50s to the early 60s will fail this test.

Other than that, it may be a matter of what country you're in. Canadian plants 
kept 78s into 1960 and all but Quality used shellac, while Quality's vinyl was 
easily cracked.

dl

MATSUBAYASHI 'Shaolin' Kohji wrote:
> Hi, and happy new year all,
>
> I'm just curious - what can I distinguish shellac 78rpms from
> other thick vinyl-made 78rpms, not only by reading labels saying
> such as "Merco Plastic" or "Non-breakable"?
>
> The last era of vinyl 78rpms can be easily distinguished just
> because they are very thin and flexible. But other type of vinyl 78rpms,
> as well as very early LPs, are not flexible and rather thick.
> I've been wondering whether the last era of thick 78rpms (late 1950s
> to early 1960s, for example) are actually made either of shellac
> or thick vinyl.
>
>
> At Fri, 4 Jan 2008 19:15:51 -0500,
> 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
>
> --
>  MATSUBAYASHI, 'Shaolin' Kohji                  shaolin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>                                                  http://microgroove.jp/
>
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