Nasal memories of my grandparents' house:    Mercury albums, pipe smoke / 
pipe tobacco (Half And Half, thank you) , the zillion Kodachrome slides and 
movies in a hall closet, and the asphalt-based glue between their 
radiant-heated concrete floors (a 1951 specialty) and the tiles above  ... 
add the smells of instant coffee in the evening and the hay-field out back, 
in the summer.

Anything with brown crinkle paint (Kodak projectors, Brunswick portables) 
seems to have a smell similar to those Mercury records.  It's probably 
either poisonous or so enjoyable that somebody is working to make it 
illegal, right now!  haha




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Unique record-related scents


> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Don Tait wrote:
>
>>   Does anyone remember the special scent of the paper in Schwann 
>> catalogues
>> between about 1954 and 1961? It was unique. I love it.
>
> You would love sitting in my library at home...
>
> And the pungent scent of
>> Mercury LPs from that time? I remember that at the record store I 
>> patronized,
>> one always knew one was near the Mercuries because one could smell them. 
>> The
>> scent seemed to come from something used on their labels because when 
>> they
>> issued some Philips-licensed things beginning around 1961 (Richter, 
>> Mengelberg)
>> the records had the same unique, pungent scent.
>
> And then there is that pungent odor of some of the Melodia boxed
> sets...smelling like something the cat dragged in.