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| Unplayable garbage or highly collectable? |
Been busy lately, and that has made me completely away from blogging for more than a month. To give myself a short break (BTW, which was and still is the initial intention to start this blog), I made a quick note on a recent acquisition of a rare, one-of-a-kind erroneous 7-inch item. Shown here is a US stock copy of
Brilliant Disguise/
Lucky Man (
US Columbia 38-07595), the first single from
TUNNEL OF LOVE released in 1987. At the first glance, it looks like a small-holed Australian copy with the yellow/red sunburst
CBS labels. As you find, however, glued on the 7" record are the US
Columbia labels with
NO LARGE HOLE! So, this record is unplayable on any turntables, which makes it totally useless as music medium but appeals to curiosity seekers like me. As occasionally shown in this blog, I own several
erroneous products of
single and LP releases of Springsteen titles. This type however is never
seen before.
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| The error disc comes in a generic Columbia sleeve rather than in the picture sleeve. |
One
thing that seemed odd was the fact that there
is no small center hole punched out on each side of the paper label,
even though it is there on the disc itself which is visible through the
labels (see the image below). Why is this odd? When the clump of
hot vinyl is pressed with
stampers, it is held by a spindle on a pressing machine and sandwiched
by a pair of paper labels. So, before setting on the pressing machine,
record labels must be small-holed so that they are pressed together with
the vinyl clump right on the center of a resultant disc ...
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When the record is held against strong light, a small center hole
appears as yellow on the paper label. The disc is translucent red,
which is a proof of a styrene-made Columbia 7" single (the
filaments of a light source on the opposite side is visible as
figural red on the upper part of the dead wax area). |
While writing this post up to this point, I recalled that it was not
vinyl pressing but
styrene molding! As I did mention
previously,
most of 7" discs from the US
Columbia Records in
the 1970s and 1980s are made by polystyrene which is injection-molded, not
pressed like vinyl, and paper labels are glued on afterward. Then a
styrene disc is punched out to make a
large center hole, together with the glued labels. Obviously, this particular copy has escaped from this final step of the production, which explains why the paper labels remain intact without a small
spindle hole.
Note that in the case of vinyl pressing (yes, relatively the small number of vinyl pressing does exist for Springsteen 7" releases by the US
Columbia Records in both promotional and stock forms), the labels should
have a small hole on the center even if the final step is
skipped. Thus far I have never seen such an error disc, though.
This was generally the case of most pressing plants that handled styrene, that center labels would not have a die-cut hole as here, given that it would ultimately be "dinked" with the large 1.5" diameter hole. I have a few other pressings like this - including one from Monarch which likewise had no holes drilled into the labels.
ReplyDeleteStyrene labels (designated "heat seal") were printed on 60 lb. coated 1 side (C1S) stock, the heat seal adhesive being of a different treatment than for, say, aspirin bottles. Only "24 up" labels could be on one large sheet prior to cutting into "6 up" sheets, as heat seal paper was smaller than the paper stock used to press LP or 45 vinyl labels (which were done in a "54 up" format, and were usually for LP's 28" x 40"). For 3.5" trim labels as for Columbia styrene pressings, the bleed was designated 3.75" and that was how the labels were stepped center to center on a sheet. For 7" 33⅓ RPM issues, a die-cut hole of 0.344" was drilled. (By contrast, by the '80's, LP label die-cut holes were 0.289" - a bit more than 0.281" which was the standard as Bruce first joined Columbia. 0.289" was also the standard for drilled holes on Santa Maria-pressed vinyl 45 labels.)
Glued-on paper labels on styrene pressings also by and large retain their original size. By contrast, vinyl labels (designated "compression") lose about 0.5% - 0.6% of their original size when pressed onto the record. (Having label sheets of various different releases and comparing their dimensions on the sheet vs. on the pressed record, I can attest to this. Such labels were generally either 70 lb. gloss coated 2 side, 70 lb. dull coated, 70 lb. matte coated [a bit thicker than dull coated], 70 lb. uncoated, 70 lb. C1S [usually on the uncoated side], and 70 lb. Kromekote cast-coated [super-shiny].)
Hi wbhist, sorry for my belated response and thank you so much for sharing your deep knowledge on manufacturing record discs, which only the professional would/should know about. BTW, do you know any example of styrene-made LP discs from 1970's to 1980's?
DeleteActually, having gotten a label sheet blank printed by Keystone Printed Specialties for CBS in the early '80's (pre-'82 before the unsightly box meant to put on the UPC was inserted, and on Philadelphia International), the paper stock used was 70 lb. C1S. It measured .0039 by my caliper (which was more or less the figure for such weight). The sheets, again "24 up," were apparently 19" x 25" before being cut into 6-up sheets to feed to the Heidelberg printer to add the label copy.
ReplyDeleteBy the 1980's, 7" styrene little LP's would have had a hole of 0.34375" or 0.348" on their labels, while LP's label holes would have been either 0.290" or 0.295".
Many thanks for your information, which is always detailed and top-notch!
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