The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The other day I went to Goodwill & bought 14 records, one of which was a Hit of the Week 10" single sided disc with Spitalny playing "Good Night Sweetheart," and "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree".

I've found these before but not really in playable condition. This one is still working, but I do not think playing it on a cabinet victrola is going to be a great idea. I played it some and it actually sounded good; just not really planning to repeat that experiment as I do not have the "shadowgraphed" needles from back then and my VV-XIV is not an archival quality turntable. One of these days I should bite the bullet & get another old Auditronics or Califone classroom record player & just update the cartridge.

Anyway that was kind of exciting & fun. Found it on discogs, and it looks like at least 22 other people have it, which is a good thing. I heard that the Hit of the Week recordings are all out on CD's as well, and that's pretty great.
https://www.discogs.com/release/1087032 ... Apple-Tree

You won’t hurt it with a steel needle.

Pro tip: put a diamond disc or an unwarped flat shellac record on the platter first, then the HotW, and then press the center down hard and secure it there by a small binder clip on the spindle to keep the HotW as flat as possible. Otherwise it can bow and allow the needle to skip or skate.

I have a ton of them and really enjoy them. The sound is good and the music is mostly quite nice. And the desperate sales voiceovers on the later ones are a poignant reminder of how awful the Great Depression was.

I didn't realise that 'Durium' records were produced and sold in the USA. (My ignorance - nothing else).

I have many of these type of records and they were sold with a special 'centre grip', which held the record in place and flat. I have one in one of my (currently inaccessible) floor standing gramophones.

They are usually very good tracks and I find the sound with steel needles is very good indeed.

IIRC, archive.org has a complete 165 track compilation of HoW records available for free download. (At least they used to...)

PeterF wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2023 4:08 pm ...press the center down hard and secure it there by a small binder clip on the spindle to keep the HotW as flat as possible. ...

I expect a modern record clamp, sold for audiophile types to apply to their LPs, would do the job, too, and probably be more secure. A cursory Google search turned up a number of them for around or less than $30.

For example: https://www.turntablelab.com/products/t ... psQAvD_BwE

(Note: I have no personal experience with any of these devices.)

At the risk of sounding like that "don't inflict steel needles on a Berliner record" guy raked over the coals in a sister thread, I, too, would hesitate to play a HotW record on an acoustic machine with steel needles. The condition of the two that I've had (which came down to me from my grandparents, and if I recall correctly both also involving Phil Spitalny) suggests that once the veneer of surface material starts to break through to the cardboard backing, the records are quickly and thoroughly, well and truly trashed. But I will bow to greater experience of others who have actually spent much time with these things.

I’m lucky enough to have a pretty sizeable pile of them, maybe 75, so maybe I haven’t played any one of them frequently enough to wear it out. But you would think that shavings would appear if a problem was occurring.

Everyone has their own approach to preservation and use of our artifacts!

I have played back a number of these records using an empty Whiskey glass, inverted, on the center. At 78 RPM the glass doesn't move and the pressure from the glass edge flattens the record.

Once I have transcribed the music from my "flat preamp", I use a turnover of about 500 Hz with good results.

Marc

These discs sound terribly well... They're very nice!

Thank you for posting this topic. I had never heard of these records before.

For anyone else like me, here is a nice intro:

https://youtu.be/PhXytxfhyFk

Lah Ca wrote: Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:22 pm Thank you for posting this topic. I had never heard of these records before.

That's quite remarkable, as they are relatively common even here in Italy; I own a pair of dozens since my eary childhood. They were released under the Durium label over here, and for many years I thought they were an "autarchic" alternative product pushed by the fascist regime, but only to find out later - thanks to the internet - that I was completely wrong.

They used to come with an oval hard cardboard clip that would tightly fit to the spindle and keep the record relatively flat, without overshadowing the label.

I fully agree that most of them deliver very nice upbeat music, and that their sound quality is remarkable in most cases. Perhaps not an item to go out and hunt for, but definitely to carry home everytime that you see any at a flea market!