BACKGROUND:
These are the "grand daddy's" of the record world, VERY LARGE 16 inch diameter discs and no matter how you try, they will never fit a standard turntable platter! Take a gander at the photograph with one of those "modern" 7" single records next to it - these 16" transcription records are massive!
To play this type of record you need what is called a transcription player, as commonly used in the broadcasting industry.
If you like this sort of thing and have some spare time ... here is a video to entertain you
I do not have a transcription turntable any longer and cannot justify modifying a "modern turntable" to suit and I suspect obtaining a 12" tonearm these days is going to be a tough call, so this disc is unplayed/untested, I cannot even place this on my current turntable platter (to check for flatness) as it simply does not fit - drat! there's a tonearm in the way.
Without further adieu ...
ARMED FORCES RADIO SERVICE
Transcription record for radio broadcasting
Made in USA
(It Was) Property Of United States Government
Dating this release precisely is difficult, estimated to be during the period 1942 ~ 1954 which is the period that the AFRS existed before being morphed into the American Forces Radio And Television Service.
16" diameter
Material: Vinyl (not acetate or shellac)
Colour: Black opaque (not even the slightest hint of Red!)
Monaural
Plays at 33
Maximum play time (each side) is 15 minutes, Yes just 15 minutes. The records were cut with a wider groove than modern vinyl (i.e a shorter play time than modern vinyl of an equivalent size) so that the audio fidelity and signal-to-noise ratio were the best achievable. This means you would need a "fatter" styli (2.5 ~ 3 mils) to run in those grooves properly.
Volume number: P-701 & P-702
Catalogue number: SSL-1383 & SSL-1384
Featuring artists ... Martha Tilton, Pied Pipers, Betty Rhodes & Bing Crosby
Vinyl condition is good condition. Visually inspected the vinyl on both sides and the surface is shiny and although there are perhaps 3 or 4 scratches on each side, none appear to be troublesome. Absolutely no cracks or edge damage to the vinyl.
No personal (or otherwise) writing on either label although the label has very slight discolouration due to cleaning.
It was tough cleaning these, my VPI vacuum cleaner cannot fit such a large record so I had to clean this one by hand by rotating the record in a suitably sized container which was holding a cold water-iso alcohol & surfactant mix and slowly rotating - unfortunately this causes some of the "dirty water solution" to run over the paper label and cause this light discolouration, this should reduce over time as the paper dries out and in fact I can see it has become fainter since taking the photograph.
I cannot see signs of vinyl structural damage (e.g melting etc) nor bending or warping.
CONTENT: The featured artists are "grouped together" and tracks are referred to as "Takes"
P-701
Martha Tilton
Conneticut
How Are Things In Glocca Morra
Pied Pipers
Make Me Know It
You Can't See The Sun When You're Crying
P-702
Betty Rhodes
What A Fool I've Been
They Can't Convince Me
Bing Crosby
Temptation
Pretending (notably with THE Les Paul on guitar)
COSMETIC CONDITION:
These transcription records were salvaged from a "near miss" tragedy! There was a fire, the arch enemy of all things vinyl! Many of these records were lost in that fire but those in the next room were not affected by heat, although some had a slight "burn look" to the outer vanilla cardboard sleeve.
The vinyl on this record is NOT AFFECTED by this fire
The vanilla sleeve has the slightest of burn marks to the edges only - nothing dramatic
Nothing smells!!! The smoke has long since cleared (this event occurred about 20 years ago) and the sleeve and/or record are odour free.
To try and reduce the collection of dust on the now relatively clean surface, I have created and fitted a sealed cellophane sleeve for the record and this is then slipped inside the outer vanilla cardboard sleeve.
In fact, this transcription record looks very nice for such an old girl, just pushing on 80 years old now ... nice historical piece of plastic!
I am well equipped to send this monster of a vinyl record safely, using export grade 3 wall cardboard - it will be shipped nice and safely. Just watch when handling these as they remind me of the old 8" (but much larger) floppy discs we used a lot in the 1980's - you need to be careful with these transcription records!
