Victor Shellac Buy Back?

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Lah Ca
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Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by Lah Ca »

My new boxes of records present many curiosities, not just the disks themselves but also the sleeves.

As evidenced by a sleeve issued by The English Gramophone Company of 549 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC, an address where a modern building or one with a face lift now stands, Victor had a shellac buy back program going at one time. It is interesting that they did not want laminated records. Does anyone know anything about this program? Was it something driven by WWII materials shortages?

The record found in the sleeve, Rio de Janeiro - Samba, by Roberto Inglez and His Orchestra from the Savoy Hotel, London, dates to 1949, I believe. But then records become so easily disassociated from their original sleeves, so who knows? Both sides of this record contain very tame, anaemic, samba-flavoured dance music--very safe--nothing to cause any physical excitement or passion, BTW.
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Phono-Phan
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by Phono-Phan »

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I hope someone replies with more information.

vintagetenor
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by vintagetenor »

It looks like a wartime shellac drive appeal.

epigramophone
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by epigramophone »

Phono-Phan wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:35 am Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I hope someone replies with more information.
This subject has been covered in previous threads, but to summarise :

As WW2 progressed, raw materials for record manufacture became increasingly difficult to obtain.
The only way these supplies could be augmented was by re-using old material.
In the UK a nationwide salvage campaign was launched in August 1942.
Apart from establishing that the records were of a material suitable for recycling, no checks of content or value were made.
We can only speculate on what valuable old records were lost to future collectors.
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shoshani
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by shoshani »

During the Second World War, shellac and other principal ingredients for the manufacture of records were all but impossible to obtain, so the major labels all asked consumers to part with older records that could be ground up and basically repressed into new records. The quality of these recycled records was not very good, but it provided a saleable product and the difference was probably not noticeable on the majority of domestic phonographs, the bulk of which had little treble and an over-emphasized bass.

As noted on this sleeve, laminated records (which were primarily Columbia and Okeh by this point) weren't suitable for this procedure, at least in the manufacture of non-laminated records. But CBS could indeed use this method for their core material, leaving the precious supply of the finer coating material for the laminated surface. (CBS inherited the old Columbia method of putting a smooth surface on a sheet of paper, then pressing that onto a core of coarser, stiffer material.)

Lah Ca
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by Lah Ca »

Thank you all for the interesting and informative replies.

Thank you also for the kind patience.
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I am still very much in the "gosh, golly, gee whizz" phase of this all. I have collected 78s haphazardly since I was 5 years old, but I have only owned a gramophone/phonograph/talking machine for less that two years. The lustre hasn't worn off, yet, and I haven't become jaded or blasé yet. ;)

edisonplayer
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by edisonplayer »

My late friend Arthur Pare told me that during WW2 he remembered seeing stacks of 78s behind the counter at Bailey's Music Store in Burlington, Vermont. It was a shellac drive. edisonplayer.

edisonplayer
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by edisonplayer »

That's why old jazz and blues records are so rare today.edisonplayer.

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mrrgstuff
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Re: Victor Shellac Buy Back?

Post by mrrgstuff »

epigramophone wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:48 pm We can only speculate on what valuable old records were lost to future collectors.
Completely agree. Though the sheer amount of stuff which is turning up out of the wild even now, some of it quite early, suggests to me many record collectors ignored the calls to recycle old records

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