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Tom Fine wrote: > Hi Roger: > > Come to think of it, I've seen mono albums with a PROMOTIONAL COPY > sticker on the sleeve but not with a white or green label or any sort > of different label. I think the whole concept of "for broadcast use > only" records came along with stereo FM. I can assure you that the concept of broadcast promo copies came along long before then, but how they were marked differed with different companies. They may not have special labels, but the distribution of radio promo copies was in place for the entire microgroove era. In the 78-L there has been a lot of questions of when marked broadcast promo records began, and 1947 seems to be a sure thing but some might have been done in 46. Debate on whether Capitol or RCA was first is the main question, with Decca being not too far behind. There were special labels on these, and Decca did a lot of them on vinyl starting around 49. Shortly after 1950 RCA started using ultra thin sharp-edged vinyl pressings for their Special Preview discs, and Mercury promo copies were also pressed on this material. In 1972 I went to a garage sale around Evanston where they were selling about 500 of these thin Mercury promo 78s that a college newspaper record reviewer had saved from his 3 or so years, and I bought about 50. But I don't recall seeing promo label classical 78s, although I have a lot of classical albums that had been from radio stations. I have white label Columbia LPs both pop and classical from the early 50s but I don't recall seeing RCA pressings that early with promo labels on LP either pop or classical although I have many that were from radio stations. There were some special RCA promo LP series, but some of those records were for public distribution as well, such as the SP series. I have some early Capitol LPs with white or yellow rubber stamping on the groove area denoting the records as store demo copies, but I doubt there were radio copies like this! There are some yellow label Capitol promo LPs starting around 54 or 55. > The stations were really harsh on record companies that couldn't > provide quiet vinyl. So, promo runs were done on the best biscuits in > the plant. At least that was how it was explained to me. > > -- Tom Fine > This was done especially in the case of 45s, especially the ones pressed by Columbia which mainly used styrene for store copies. Styrene is very quiet for the first couple of playings -- especially when compared with the crap vinyl usually used for 45s -- but develops cue-burn VERY quickly. RCA Victor was using crap vinyl for a lot of their LPs in the 60s and since Mercury was doing a lot of pressing at RCA, the use of higher quality vinyl for promo copies as well as classical records in general was probably insisted on. Red Seal, Original Cast, and Vintage Series pressings usually used good vinyl, but the regular black label Victors for a lot of the 60s was on vinyl that inherently noisy. I can tell which is which by just looking at them. For all its faults, Dynaflex was a blessedly quiet alternative. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Kulp" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 9:36 PM > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Wilma Cozart Fine, RIP > > > Here's a question.I have a bunch of Living Presence stereo promo > copies,but I have never seen a promo label of a pre-stereo mono Living > Presence.Did they press them ? > Roger > >