Interesting find, a Deluxe Recording Disc.

Hello,

I found a RCA Deluxe Recording Disc 803-5 with what's written in by hand to look like "Ah sweet mystery of life" with Jesse Crawford on Organ - Melanie Jeanetta. It seems to be an original recording. Just wondering if it has a value of some sort. I do know Jesse Crawford was quite the organ dude from my dad. So, I'm hoping this record is something really neat.

Thanks!

Hi,

I did check ebay, but I noticed that this record was very different from the others in that it looks like it might be the master recording. That's what I think makes it unique. Am I wrong?

Thanks

It's a home recording disc. I have quite a few. Most of my recording discs are Wilcox-Gay Recordio blanks.

Before tape was available, they sold phonographs that could record, and recording discs to be used with them. They are blank lacquer or vinyl discs, although some RCA ones were pre-grooved with blank grooves.

I had a Stewart Warner recorder. It had a recording head with a screw drive to feed the cutter arm. A special chisel-tipped stylus fit the cutter head. The audio amplifier could be switched between the speaker and the recording head.

The extra holes were for drive pins, so the record does not slip on the turntable during recording. And the drive motor must be hefty to drive the disc under the drag of the cutter.

An early RCA recorder used the pregrooved disc. The pickup stylus was replaced with a recording tool and a lever was moved that increased the tracking force to about 5 pounds. The amplifier was switched to feed the pickup cartridge, and the arm was placed on the record in the normal way. The sound waves were embossed onto the blank grooves.

It might just be a copy someone made of a commercial record. People sometimes hooked another phonograph to the recorder, or just stuck a mic in front of the speaker, and copied records they could otherwise not get.

This was just before and during World War II when these recorders were in use. There were often embargoes of products from other countries, meaning that people in one country could not buy artists recording in another country. But someone moving to a different country brought recordings, and friends copied them.

It might also be a recording of a private performance the artist did for a private group, or a demo made on a home recorder.

When these home recorders were made, there was not yet any copyright on a recording itself, but only on the sheet music used for a recording.

One clue that it is a home recording, and not a studio master, is the lack of a finishing groove to trip a record changer. The home recording machines could not make finishing grooves. Only a pregrooved home recording disc or a studio cut record would have a finishing groove. Any finishing groove would have the eccentric final locked groove in use at that time.

The "eccentric" groove was patented by the Victor Talking Machine Co., and one of, if not THE reason RCA purchased the company. The "Victor trip" remained a money maker for RCA well into the 1960's as everyone that made a record, or a record player paid royalties, till then--
Ron Rich

The "eccentric" groove was patented by the Victor Talking Machine Co., and one of, if not THE reason RCA purchased the company. The "Victor trip" remained a money maker for RCA well into the 1960's as everyone that made a record, or a record player paid royalties, till then--
Ron Rich

Thank you guys for the information. It's kind of cool to find something that peaks your curiosity and ends up teaching you about a thing or two. Much appreciate your input and knowledge. I ended up learning a great deal about Jesse Crawford... Looks like he did a lot of his own recordings. http://theatreorgans.com/southerncross/ ... wfords.htm

Anyway, thanks again for replying and sharing your knowledge. I feel like this record has taken me on a journey that I probably would never have gone on before it. Found I got exposed to some incredible music and history in the process.

Ron Rich wrote:The "eccentric" groove was patented by the Victor Talking Machine Co., and one of, if not THE reason RCA purchased the company. The "Victor trip" remained a money maker for RCA well into the 1960's as everyone that made a record, or a record player paid royalties, till then--
Ron Rich

While that may have been an incentive, all of the histories I've read point to the fact that RCA acquired Victor primarily for its factory floorspace. In fact, RCA had snotted and drooled over the Victor Talking Machine plant for years, prior to it's 1929 acquisition from Seligman & Spyer, the banking syndicate that Eldridge Johnson sold his controlling interest in Victor to a few years earlier.

Once RCA was in full control, it pushed Victrolas and even records to the back room, and made radio production its primary focus. The manufacture of the (still-popular) all mechanical Victrolas was immediately halted, except for a few portable models. Shortly after the acquisition, according to a few references, RCA also discussed the possibility of ending all production of consumer recordings--those records sold for home usage--because of the Depression-caused dip in sales.

Joe

The eccentric trip groove was totally abandoned by 1954, except for old masters that were reused. It was replaced by the velocity trip, which detects the increase of the speed of the tonearm motion into the runout groove, not the backward motion the eccentric groove puts on the arm.

RCA actually defined the 45 to NOT use the eccentric trip, but the position trip. All of the little 45 players except the Webcor and VM units used a position trip. Those two had the velocity trip.

An eccentric trip groove will correctly trip a velocity trip player, but a velocity trip groove will not trip an eccentric trip player. A player with a position trip can be confounded by either kind of groove, either tripping too soon or not tripping at all.

Actually, RCA wanted the radio to replace the record as the source of music. The problem was that you could not tune into a radio and hear the song you wanted.