Album Books for 10" and 12" Disks?

[Lah Ca]

I have been given a sizeable collection, mostly Classical music so far, which was stored for many years in a location against a basement wall where the bottom edge of all the boxes against the wall got damp seasonally.

The records are entirely salvageable so far but the album books are not - they are simply too far gone.

I am wondering if any company makes and sells new album books for 78s.

Do you know of any?

[Dischoard]

I know of no company making reproduction books but you will probably find members with originals to sell. I, for one, don't tend to store my records in books unless there's a special case (for instance all of my Vogue picture discs, Christmas Records, and Eddie Fisher records (for some reason) are in books). Because of that I have a ton of empty 10" books that I've been storing and planning to list individually locally. I'd be just as happy letting go a number of them all to once if interested. Good luck!

[Lah Ca]

I know of no company making reproduction books but you will probably find members with originals to sell. I, for one, don't tend to store my records in books unless there's a special case (for instance all of my Vogue picture discs, Christmas Records, and Eddie Fisher records (for some reason) are in books). Because of that I have a ton of empty 10" books that I've been storing and planning to list individually locally. I'd be just as happy letting go a number of them all to once if interested. Good luck!

Thank you for the reply.

I don't generally store my records in albums, either, unless they form a set of some kind, i.e. an actual album release.

My immediate need/want is for 12" albums as pretty much all the disks I was recently given are 12" one.

I just cleaned up a six disk set of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony the other day. The disks are currently in paper sleeves, discards taken from thrift store LP purchases. All six disks in their sleeves fit inside a plastic outer sleeve for an LP. Good enough for the moment but not convenient.

[drh]

If they've been damp regularly for years, there's a good chance they are damaged. Look at the disks at an angle in good light; if you see what looks like the little bumps in the photo below, then humidity has injured the surface, and playback will be moderately to extremely crackly/noisy. The situation you describe is potentially worse, because the moisture was consistently coming from one edge; in such cases, not infrequently maybe half the record surface will be affected, the other not, or not nearly as badly, and the result will be alternating lots of and little noise with each revolution, making for annoying listening. The blebs aren't always obvious to the eye unless you hold the record to the light just right--it took me around 8 shots to get them to show in the photo--but they will be painfully obvious in playback.

Incidentally, a question for the group at large: are you seeing more of this sort of thing than you used to? I've been weeding a LOT of duplicates in a couple of large collections that have come my way, and in the process I feel as if I've been encountering a surprising number of records with humidity issues, both there and lurking previously unnoticed in my own existing holdings. I'll freely grant that I may not have been sensitized to the issue until more recent years, but could it be that shellac record material, after a century or thereabouts, is starting to reach the end of its useful chemical lifespan (i.e., doing a "pot metal" on us)? I certainly hope not!

[Lah Ca]

If they've been damp regularly for years, there's a good chance they are damaged. Look at the disks at an angle in good light; if you see what looks like the little bumps in the photo below, then humidity has injured the surface, and playback will be moderately to extremely crackly/noisy. The situation you describe is potentially worse, because the moisture was consistently coming from one edge; in such cases, not infrequently maybe half the record surface will be affected, the other not, or not nearly as badly, and the result will be alternating lots of and little noise with each revolution, making for annoying listening. The blebs aren't always obvious to the eye unless you hold the record to the light just right--it took me around 8 shots to get them to show in the photo--but they will be painfully obvious in playback.

Thank you for the reply.

I have not found any disks, yet, that are not recoverable. There are no bumps found (thanks for the informative pic) There is a mild fungal bloom in some small areas near the edge on some disks where they were close to the dampness. I have cleaned this off the disks, but some damage to the surface remains. The disks so far are generally in good shape, relative to their age and usage history. The grandfather of the man who gave them to me looked after them but played them a lot. Some disks look like NOS - bright and glossy, nary a scratch or scuff to be seen. There is noise from them, but I think it is the noise of love. I have disks that I have payed good money for, rated VG+/E by vendors, that sound worse. LOL.

I love nice clean 78s with pristine sound, but noise doesn't bother me. It is not what I listen to.