Metal records??

[Russell Sinclair]

I have received a 45rpm record which seems to be the 'old days' equivalent
of a short or limited release.
Its a horse race call but the peculiar thing about it is that the substrate
for the record is metal - on the underneath you can easily see the silver
metal (looks like aluminium but feels too heavy) and a black coating has
been poured all of the rest of the substrate and then the recording made
into this black substance.
Estimated time period would be 1950-60's
Anyone have information about these? were they common? What was the black
stuff (early sort of plastic?)

Some cracking is evident - any ideas about how to keep this in good
condition or at least slow down the decay of the surface? I will be
displaying these and other oddities and I'm thinking of how to protect them


Russell

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> I have received a 45rpm record which seems to be the 'old days' equivalent
> of a short or limited release.
> Its a horse race call but the peculiar thing about it is that the substrate
> for the record is metal - on the underneath you can easily see the silver
> metal (looks like aluminium but feels too heavy) and a black coating has
> been poured all of the rest of the substrate and then the recording made
> into this black substance.

It sounds to me like you're describing an acetate blank. There were
home recorders that recorded on these, and up until about 1970, just
about every radio station (certainly every suburban radio station) had
a disk cutter because that's where people went to make recordings.

Do you "horse race" literally? There were some records made that were
called "horse race records" because they were cut with two or more
sets of parallel grooves. Depending on where you set down the playback
stylus, one of the multiple "tracks" would play through, and the horse
race had different winners.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

[Scott Dorsey]

Russell Sinclair > wrote:
>I have received a 45rpm record which seems to be the 'old days' equivalent
>of a short or limited release.
>Its a horse race call but the peculiar thing about it is that the substrate
>for the record is metal - on the underneath you can easily see the silver
>metal (looks like aluminium but feels too heavy) and a black coating has
>been poured all of the rest of the substrate and then the recording made
>into this black substance.
>Estimated time period would be 1950-60's
>Anyone have information about these? were they common? What was the black
>stuff (early sort of plastic?)

This is an acetate. It's a one-off recording cut on a lathe, not a pressing. It is
aluminum with a layer of acetate or nitrocellulose lacquer. It is VERY soft and it
wears out very quickly. These are also called "dub plates" or "instantaneous
transcriptions" and they were used for broadcast recording work in the days before
tape, and they were often used for one-off recordings or dubs to give to performers
to take home or as demos long afterward.

>Some cracking is evident - any ideas about how to keep this in good
>condition or at least slow down the decay of the surface? I will be
>displaying these and other oddities and I'm thinking of how to protect them

Keep it in reasonably low temperature and humidity.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."