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Re: [ARSCLIST] Glass Records
At 07:59 PM 5/20/08, Tom wrote:
The ones I've seen down here either shrunk with typical wet/dry
environment or were too tight from Day 1. Plus, the "paper" sleeves
either get gritty with age or were never very good material to be
against grooves.
Based on my observations with old 78s, I have to agree with
Tom. I've run into way too many 78 multi-disc albums that have been
in less than ideal storage conditions. The materials dried out, dirt
collected inside the sleeves (dirt settles, and it usually settled on
the top of the sleeves, just where they were conveniently left open),
and the discs severely damaged *if* they survived in one piece at
all. The paper materials weren't of the acid-free variety, and this
creates another set of problems.
By contrast, vynil LPs seem to have a far better survival ability,
even when dragged out of a basement flood. The sleeves and jackets
may be destroyed, but I've found careful cleaning often restores the
disc to playable condition.
And, if the albums aren't kept well on a shelf, they warp the
records by bending over time and being set in the bend by humidity and drying.
Yes, I have seen this too. Once they take a set... that's
it. Nothing will fix it or track it ever again. In the case of a
vynil LP, a warped disc can sometimes be corrected by two sheets of
plate glass in a convection oven (with exceptional temp control) at
100 degrees or thereabouts with the offending disc between the glass.
Add 50 years to them and they get brittle so the whole thing is a
bunch of broken disks waiting to happen.
Bad storage conditions really make this worse. I can only imagine
how many years they spent in a garage or attic before I find
them. Quite probably, they were in these terrible places 10 to 15
years before I was born!
One final strike against them -- the klutz factor.
... or the heaved-in-a-dumpster factor. I've rescued a fair number
of them from there. High mortality rate, as you can imagine.
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