1938 vintage disc – plus dents

These 78 rpm discs were produced back in the ’50s and ’60s and were designed to be played on a gramophone with a thorn needle. Pre-dating acetates, these ‘lo-fi’ but robust aluminium discs were generally used for family greeting messages.

Three arrived recently with slight dents to their surfaces – sufficient to render transcription at 78 rpm impossible.

Instead, they were successfully transcribed at 33 1/3 rpm using a 3.5 thou’ conically truncated diamond stylus and a Decca EQ curve.

The resulting audio file was then adjusted to the correct speed, before declicking/ denoising etc.

The flip-side contained a recorded advert for the Derry and Toms department store in London – you can listen to it here…