Another week, another interesting job – this time in the form of a rare, early 78 rpm transparent flexi-disc dating back to the mid 1940s.

Unfortunately the record has suffered damage with a crack from the centre hole spreading to half-way across the grooves. Clearly the disc’s flexibility has diminished over the years and it has become brittle and fragile. As can be seen, one corner is missing, resulting in partial loss of the lead-in groove and hence the first few seconds of the recording.

The first job was to stabilise the crack to prevent it from getting any worse and to allow the disc to be transcribed – the yellow round stickers were perfect for this.

As is often the case with these old discs, I prefer to transcribe at 33 1/3 rather than 78 rpm to ensure good trackability, especially with the crack present.

Once the audio track had been speed-corrected, it was declicked and denoised to give a very passable account of itself after nearly 70 years, not to mention providing a piece of ‘living’ history for the family. Hear it for yourself!