Lucky sample record find at local auction

[recordo]

As a label nut, I'd be very happy to find just one example of these, and at a dollar each I'd be over the moon :)

I certainly was over the moon - a celebratory lunch was held yesterday after getting them.

[transformingArt]

As far as I can see all records above are advance copies to the trade.

Quite often test pressings and advance copies to the trade are mixed up. The differentiation is simple: test pressings don't bear the catalogue number in the dead wax while advance copies do.

Thanks for the correction - I should have been more careful using this term. It is always good thing for me that someone like you would 'enlighten' me.

I've seen a Tito Schipa record which is about 13 inches in diameter and has no labels except the etchings at the center; I wonder if I could call this a Test Pressing.

[Wolfe]

I've seen a Tito Schipa record which is about 13 inches in diameter and has no labels except the etchings at the center; I wonder if I could call this a Test Pressing.

Wonder no more. That would certainly be a test.

[recordo]

Well, I finally got around to playing the disks and they are very quiet - almost no surface noise compared to HMV contemporary issues - makes me wonder if they used some better than average shellac compound to impress the dealers to whom they sent the records!

[Swing Band Heaven]

Well, I finally got around to playing the disks and they are very quiet - almost no surface noise compared to HMV contemporary issues - makes me wonder if they used some better than average shellac compound to impress the dealers to whom they sent the records!

I'm not so sure...I have several normal releases from the company dating from around the time of your disks and they have increadably quiet surfaces - almost silent with virtually no crackle. Perhaps they just used less filler in the shellac in those days. By the late teens and into the 1920's they must have been using buckfuls of fillers judging from the crackle of those vintage of HMV disks (I am talking here about UK issued HMV disks not the ultra smooth laminated copies made in Australia)

S-B-H

[Wolfe]

How about IR prefix (HMV)pressings? I have a couple IR (Irish) John McCormack things from 1940-ish and they also have very quiet, smooth surfaces. Any other HMV I own is crackle city.