Billie Holiday on Brunswick 78 rpm

[Dischoard]

Nothing super exciting here, but I figured others may have found themselves in a very similar position before and it's not like my kids are going to listen to my stories

I was in my local thrift store yesterday where there is always a sparsely populated crate of 78s underneath the new arrival vinyl records. Most of the time the 78s are ones that I've brought in for donation after going through a large collection of red Columbias, black Deccas, and Capitol discs. This time I noticed the very first record had a black and silver Brunswick label which always gets me excited because there's a good chance it's a Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday record. I was very excited when that turned out to actually be the case!

My joy quickly turned to dismay as I pulled the disc out of the sleeve and was immediately greeted by a crack running along the diameter of the record.

I didn't mind the sticker remnants on the label, those often soften and slide right off with warm water but cracks are usually a no-go for me. I did find an Ink Spots blue Decca that I didn't have and so I picked both records out and walked throughout the store. I figured, if nothing else, for .50c the Holiday needed rescuing. My plan was to attempt to clean it absolutely as carefully as I could when I got home and see if anything was salvageable.

Much to my surprise, the crack is only visible on one side. Has this ever happened to you before? When I saw the crack on the B side it never even occurred to me to turn the disc over:

You better believe I handled this with kit gloves whilst cleaning. I did not want to make a crack appear on the other side. I removed the stickers on both sides, dried the disc and gave it a spin on my 8-30X. I was shocked that there wasn't even a tick from the needle.

Is it a valuable record? No, probably not more than most, and certainly not in the condition that it's in, but the chance of me finding another soon is pretty slim. It was totally worth .50c at least AND I won't feel so bad playing it with a steel needle on my Orthophonic machine! In any case, I'll be cutting a stiff piece of cardboard to size and storing this in a plastic sleeve with the extra support. Who knows, perhaps I'll stumble across a suitable replacement in the future!

[gramophone-georg]

It's a lam crack, and if it does not sound it likely will not get worse. That era Brunswick is laminated like a Columbia.
That's not a common record. Nice find.

[Dischoard]

It's a lam crack, and if it does not sound it likely will not get worse. That era Brunswick is laminated like a Columbia.
That's not a common record. Nice find.

I'm definitely not familiar with the term "lam crack" but I appreciate the new-found hope

[Inigo]

It's a crack only in the outer fine mixture layer. As there are paper layers between these and the coarse mixture record inner body, the crack will not progress to the core {maybe) nor to the other side. If you have seen many red Columbias you maybe have seen the same case, if only at the record edge... It's an advantage of this type of record.

[edisonplayer]

I've seen several copies of the demo record on the Columbia Flag label.edisonplayer.

[Dischoard]

Several copies of this Teddy Wilson record? Interesting, a new thing to search for!

[gramophone-georg]

Several copies of this Teddy Wilson record? Interesting, a new thing to search for!

Don't think that's what he meant. He meant the demonstration record posted in the ad. Teddy Wilson on a Flag label with Billie Holiday would be quite the time warp!

[Dischoard]

Several copies of this Teddy Wilson record? Interesting, a new thing to search for!

Don't think that's what he meant. He meant the demonstration record posted in the ad. Teddy Wilson on a Flag label with Billie Holiday would be quite the time warp!

What, you don't think a 10 year old Billie Holiday would have sang with a 13 year old Teddy Wilson for Columbia?

[Damfino59]

I think “lam crack” is just part of our 78rpm addiction

[Inigo]

and very addictive !!!