Garr Norick wrote:
I Know of a Record Collector who has mentioned Regrooved/Recut
Records in his auction lists... I asked him about this and he was
very vague about it... said he knew a Jeweler who had the ability
to do this and he sometimes had him do this to rare records in not
so good condition to make them salable, but was very vague about
it otherwise... does anyone here know anything about this
technology? could they tell me? Thanks in advance :)
It sounds as though someone might have done some repair to a
damaged groove. I've never heard of this being done to a shellac or
vinyl pressing, but it was actually quite common for metal parts.
A metal positive (mother) would have some sort of damage to a
groove, and a skilled technician with a loupe and a (presumably
jeweled) stylus tool would re-engrave the groove at that point by
hand.
Dr. Oliver Read's book on sound recording has a photographic
explanation of the whole process for mastering, plating and
stamping phonorecords, and this groove repair process is
illustrated. The record illustrated in this process appears to be
MICROGROOVE, so someone somewhere learned to have very steady hands
and nerves.
(I suppose it was cheaper to do it that way than just recut the
lacquer and do new platings?)
Michael Shoshani
Chicago IL