Hi Mike:
That 1967 story makes sense but it all seems a little early. Philips was still releasing USA-market
classical LPs under both the Philips and Mercury labels until the early 70's, all of them pressed at
Richmond IN and of lower and lower quality. They also had an accounting arrangement where some
Mercury releases were from Philips European sessions and vice-versa where US sessions listed in the
Mercury session books ended up as Philips LPs. This would have taken place after Harold Lawrence
left and Mercury Living Presence was basically shut down, circa mid-1967.
My bet is that any Mercury Living Presence records in that pile you saw in 1967 was a Richmond
pressing, so the early titles wouldn't be as good as the original RCA pressings. Even in the case of
titles originally pressed at Richmond, for instance the 1962 Russian recordings, the later pressings
aren't as quiet and the later packaging is cheaper. But, any of the regular-length albums were
likely to sound better than the long-side reissues, which were generally cut at too low a level to
comfortably overcome American vinyl surface noise. The lowest of the low, not even worth the 50
cents they eventually sold for, are the Mercury Wing reissues. Close second are the
fake-stereo/long-sided reissues of some mono material from the late 60's, plus the reissues of other
materials on the Philips World label.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Technics apparently really has discontinued their turntables
> On 1/3/2011 1:41 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
>> You may be asking rhetorical questions in today's times, but I'd answer, "any large corporation
>> phasing out a tiny part of their business."
>
> I certainly agree but it seemed so out-of-place. It would be smart to have announced it in
> advance and watch the huge orders rush in and make one last killer of a profit. If course it
> could backfire and there might be a decision made NOT to end production, and that could have been
> why it was kept secret.
>
> As we have all been watching how bad decisions have killed the record industry, I remember how
> these things have been going on seemingly forever. When Schwann dropped the Black Diamond symbol
> for cut-outs and The Gramophone dropped its monthly cut-out page, it seemed so strange that the
> record industry would not want to sell-out its soon to be cut-outs at full price by publicising
> them rather than sell them at a loss later on. Publish the list, tell everyone they have two
> months, and then trash the rest, don't discount them. If we KNOW we won't find them cheap, we'll
> get them while they are available.
>
> Tom will especially be interested in this -- in 1966 and 67 I worked for a huge Rack Jobber that
> did a large cut-out business. One day we were told to clear out the whole front corner of the
> warehouse -- move the stock there somewhere else. Then two tractor trailers arrived FULL with
> perhaps a million Mercury/Philips/Fontana/Smash cut-out LPs. It's where I got all my mint stereo
> Mercury comedy albums -- 2nd City, etc -- and loads of other stuff. If I only knew how important
> the Living Presence classicals would be -- GEEZE, there were 100 copies of each there. We
> stickered them at 49 cents to $1.89 and out they went over the next six months. I never saw this
> invoice, but I bet the pop stuff cost us less than a quarter and the classical a half a buck at
> the most. The only markings were the circular rubber stamp.
>
> These things happened over and over -- somebody else made the profit on the soon-to-be-rare stuff,
> and the same thing is about to happen with the Techniques turntables. If we knew -- really knew,
> not just the rumors -- a LOT of people would have bought two, and Techniques would have gotten the
> profit.
>
> Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>> On 1/3/2011 12:43 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
>>>> Kevin at KAB Electronics sent the following response to my followup querie on this topic:
>>>>
>>>> _____________________________
>>>> About 3 weeks ago, an official announcement was made to all distributors
>>>> that the Technics line of turntables is now discontinued. ...They purposely waited until all
>>>> inventory was depleted.
>>>
>>> What kind of warped business logic is THAT??????? What kind of people do that to loyal business
>>> associates and customers???? This seems sadistic.
>>>
>>> Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>
>>
>
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