![]() They featured a sequence of sixteen interwoven animation frames arrayed around the centre and were to be played at 78 rpm on a turntable with a short spindle, on which a small sixteen-mirrored device, a variety of the praxinoscope (great word!) was placed. Red Raven Movie Records, introduced in 1956, were a very unusual type of children's picture disc. Other companies such as Voco also made picture discs for children. Their most popular and well-known issues resembled Vogue records in their general style of illustration and use of high-quality materials, but they were only 7 inches in diameter, had no reinforcing core disc, and sold for a much lower price. More commercially successful and long-lived were some of the children's picture discs marketed by the Record Guild of America from the late 1940s through the 1950s. ![]() ![]() The novelty of the colourful discs attracted interest and sales at first, but success proved elusive and Vogue went out of business in 1947 after fewer than 100 catalogue items bearing the Vogue logo had been issued. Vogue records retailed for US$1.05, about fifty percent more than ordinary ten-inch 78 rpm records at the time. These must be amongst some of the most rare record collectables. Top-tier talent was usually under exclusive contract to companies such as Mercury Records, for whom Sav-Way manufactured special attention-grabbing, quiet-surfaced picture discs that Mercury distributed only to radio disc jockeys. The audio quality was excellent by contemporary standards and they featured professional talent, most with names known to the general public, but Vogue was handicapped by the lack of any big "hit" names. Vogue's discs featured artwork done in the styles typical of 1940s commercial illustration and poster art. Vogues were a well-made product physically similar to RCA Victor's improved 1933 issues except that their core discs were aluminum instead of shellac. Picture discs fell by the wayside until 1946 when Tom Saffardy's Sav-Way Industries began issuing Vogue Records in USA. In the early 1930s the entire record industry was being devastated by a worldwide economic depression and the proliferation of the new medium of radio, which made a wide variety of music available free of charge. These were deluxe picture discs, priced much higher than ordinary records, and they sold in very small numbers. It was the first 33⅓ rpm picture disc and the only one made until many years later. Like nearly all records being made for the general public, they were recorded at 78 rpm, but one issue was recorded at 33⅓ rpm, a speed already in use for special purposes which Victor was then unsuccessfully attempting to introduce into home use. A rigid blank shellac core disc was sandwiched between two illustrated sheets and each side was then topped with a substantial layer of high-quality clear plastic into which the recording was pressed. issued a few typical cardboard-based picture records but was unhappy with their quality and soon began making an improved type. However, some were more sturdy and well-made and they equaled or actually surpassed the audio quality of regular records, which were still made of a gritty shellac compound that introduced a lot of background noise. I’d also imagine they were hardly robust. Most of these records were made of a simple sheet of fairly thin printed cardboard with a very thin plastic coating and their audio quality was substandard. I wonder if anyone still has these? I’ve never ever seen a copy. Adolf Hitler and British fascist Oswald Mosley were each featured on their own special picture discs. ![]() Some politicians and demagogues explored the potential of the discs as a medium for propaganda. Some were illustrated with photographs or artwork simply designed to be appropriate to the musical contents, but some graphics also promoted films in which the recorded songs had been introduced, and a few were blatant advertising that had little or no connection with the recording. Their first wave of significant popularity did not arrive until the start of the 1930s, when several companies in several countries began issuing them. Although in the late 70s and 80s picture discs became commonplace, it’s not often known that they had been around since the 1920s.
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