Hi, Tom,

Steve Smolian's comment makes me think it doesn't have to be a separate
plant, but perhaps a separate formula? Of course, shipping as discussed
does come into play.

I wonder what the different climates are that Marie's tapes have been
stored in...

I know many of the tapes I receive from Canada have been stored in very
humid locations. I rescued some tapes from a Toronto basement sixteen
years ago or so where I practically slipped on my rear in the slick mud
on the floor. My wife's office is in an old house where the basement
gets wet with each rain. It's an historic old house and she works for
the Historical Society that owns it.

Cheers,

Richard


On 1/29/2016 3:52 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
...>
> Richard, your theory about different formulas for Commonwealth
> Ampex-branded tapes may well be true, but you'd need to suss out for
> sure where all that tape was manufactured. I'm not aware of any Ampex
> plant except Opelika AL (formerly Orradio Industries). For that matter,
> did 3M have tape-making plants other than in Minnesota? I always thought
> that Ampex and 3M tapes were made in USA; Sony, Maxell, TDK and maybe
> Memorex were made in Japan; BASF was made in Germany and Agfa was made
> in Germany and Holland. As I understand it, there was a Russian tape
> manufacturer in the Cold War era, but Soviet and Eastern Bloc recordists
> also bought a lot of Agfa and BASF tape.
>

--
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.