Painted Label 45's

Anyone know the origination - pressing plant, location, etc. - of "painted label" 45's, the ones which had directly-printed labels on the records rather than paper labels? Here in the U.S. it looks like they were around for only 10 years or so and it appears that the majority of the labels using them were based in New York City. The time frame is from around 1962 until 1972 or so (it's possible to find Partridge Family singles on Bell on this kind of label). I know this kind of labeling was available in Europe and England well into the 80's (some, like Charisma, with the logo and label print incused into the styrene itself) but here in the States it seemed to be from a shorter time frame. Any ideas? Thanks!

STYRENE.. Styrene (properly, Polystyrene).
Hard, relatively inflexible plastic used to press records, mainly 7-inch
singles, mainly using the Injection Moulding process. The material is heated
to a liquid form and is then squirted or injected into the closed stampers
in the press. This requires that the labels be either glued or painted on
after the record leaves the press. The cost savings to the manufacturer
comes from the extended life of the stampers because of the lack of a
heating cycle to the stampers. The material can also be reused without
noticeable change to its moulding properties. Styrene records will therefore
usually have very quiet surfaces when found in an UNPLAYED Mint condition,
but unfortunately they will wear to a noisy condition rapidly, especially if
played with a bad stylus or an improperly tracking tonearm. They also are
more prone to Cue Burn. The Columbia Records Pittman, New Jersey pressing
plant was once the major source of Injection Moulded Styrene pressings, and
pressings from this plant are found on MANY small labels. Look for the
glued-on labels. Painted-on labels can be found on records from the
Amy/Bell/Mala group. Apparently, Styrene was developed in the early 1950s in America, and was seen as a cheaper material for pressing records. The main producers of styrene at this time were labels under the Columbia group (Okeh, Columbia, Epic etc). During the late

I have quite a few of these, including a few 33 rpm records.

The labels I have encountered are:

Bell
Mala
Amy
Sphere Sound
Big Tree
Philly Groove
Pickwick (made the 33s)
Design
Cricket
Happy Times
Audio Spectrum
Hit

I also have some clear green vinyl Christmas 45s with painted-on labels on RCA Victor

Two other "painted" labels are Dimension and (I think) World. Can't recall ever seeing Big Tree with a painted label, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I know it was a Bell subsidiary at one time before being sold to Atlantic. Never saw Hit as a "painted", either. Live and learn...
I also heard there was a pressing plant out on Long Island (New York) which used styrene - they were also notorious for using cheap glue on their labels. It dried out quickly and left a lot of "mystery discs" with missing labels floating around used record circles. ABC-Paramount is probably the most common label from this plant but they also pressed Golden Crest (good luck finding a Wailers 45 with both labels intact) and a lot of your cheaper Columbia custom-product label releases.
I used to find hairlines in BRAND-NEW styrene pressings from the late 70s - I remember searching through a full box of a title just to find one without cracks. Then I'd take it home and play it only to have the thing SKIP all over the place because of a lousy pressing (probably a too-light pickup, too). Part of the reason why I don't have a lot of fond memories from the Disco Era (plus a lousy social life but that's all behind me now!)

Shelley Products

Thanks for the details, ks. How is the Shrine label "infamous"? Never heard of it before.
Anyone have the details on the specific plant which pressed the "painteds"?
I can personally add a couple kiddie labels to the list, too: Golden and Lionel (the latter appeared as 78s, too).

Shrine Records 1964-67 is one of those labels that has become collectable because they hardly sold anything while they were in operation and then their whole warehouse stock went up in flames during the Watts Riots.
You've probably seen "Singleton-McCoy" as songwriters on many records..they wrote "Trying to get to you" for Elvis Presley..they were well known in the branch. Eddie Singleton was married to Berry Gordy's ex wife..started the label as an outlet for his songwriting.He only ever released 19 discs but so few survive that they've become interesting.

Styrene was only used in 7in. pressings predominantly by the major labels that also owned their own pressing plants since they were/are the only ones that would really save a significant amount of money by using a cheaper and lighter materials. unless it was a small label distributed or owned by a major, nearly everything on small labels was/is pressed on vinyl. unless from the mid-western and west coast of the us.??!! yes. it is true. you can actually tell where most 7 inch records on a major label were produced just by what it was made with- styrene or vinyl. because of production, shipping, etc... costs, the plants on the west coast used styrene. while here on the east coast they continued to use vinyl. i don't know why a company such as columbia didn't have one standard for the whole country but they didn't. from what i've learned, none of the plants on the east coast used styrene. it is because of this that some real die hard collectors can really tell if their 45 is a true first pressing or not.
In Europe The Polydor Group went over to styrene at an early stage..see picture

Regarding Columbia: it's a real treat to turn up a Columbia (or subsidiary label) on vinyl - it seems like they were using it for a while in the early 1960s, got away from it in the mid-1960s, and went back to it later in the decade. I've found commercial copies of titles by Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Revere & The Raiders...hey, even "Rubber Duckie" by "Ernie" (Jim Henson)! You'll even see them into the early 1970s - I own a vinyl copy of Springsteen's "Born To Run" 45. Then it seemed like they went cheap on us again during the Disco Era and used brittle styrene again, and when everyone STOPPED buying 45s in the 1980s...back to vinyl!
In a way, "smaller" labels WERE using styrene...if they were Columbia custom pressings.
Regarding the Polydor single: this is an original issue? I used to have a similar pressing of The Beatles (With Tony Sheridan) "My Bonnie" which I picked up at a German department store back in 1981.
Regarding specifically the "Fire" single: ever see a copy on the Track (U.S. pressing) label? I never knew it existed until I bought a beat copy a couple years ago. Same catalog number as Atlantic but a completely different label. Even Joel Whitburn doesn't reference it in his chart books and I have yet to see mention of it in the Goldmine record guides. Just a little trivia...

Re the Arthur Brown disc

I dug this old post up from Mikey who used to run a record pressing plant in Australia..some of the stories he told were fascinating.
Its very rare that the people who worked with the production of vinyl come forward and tell how it was.
"Polystyrene records are made by means of an injection/compression moulding process without the moulds in the record press being heated! Whereas it takes up to 15 seconds to press a conventional 7" vinyl record using the conventional compression moulding process, these polystyrene records are made in just a few seconds. I saw them being made at EMI Hayes.

The label is moulded into the record (just like the grooves are). Once the record is pressed, it is sandwiched between two paint rollers and the label background is painted on! Note: the type is etched into the record, so it does not receive any paint. The idea of these records was that they are fast and inexpensive to make due to the different manufacturing process and the material used. "

They wear out real fast. Polystyrene was only used for singles (never used on LPs) as singles are considered to have a very short life span ( a few weeks of constant play followed by no play for the rest of your natural life ). That was the theory, anyway.

Believe it or not, ks, the Track 45 does have the catalog number printed right there on the label - it's not a sticker. I'd scan it for you if I had the facilities. My guess is that it started on Track here in the U.S. and when it took off, Atlantic pressed up the rest (Track was a subsidiary of Atlantic at the time - the most common find on this label is Thunderclap Newman's "Something In The Air"; Brown's other U.S. release, "I Put A Spell On You", is also on Track but was never picked up on the larger label...wasn't as big a hit, I guess). I've mentioned this to other dealers and collectors and they just scoff it off with "Oh yeah, it's an early pressing"...but I have yet to see someone else come forward with another copy!
Styrene LP's were released in the States but it was mainly confined to the really cheapo labels like Parade (and more likely as a 10" LP) and Design. That music was as disposable as the records, no doubt! I worked at a used record store which had THOUSANDS of albums in stock and I was one of the sorter / organizers. I can't tell you how many times I came across those cheapies. Very rarely did we have a buyer for them, too. They wound up being delegated to the category of CDF (Contemporary Dumpster Fodder)!!! We had a big green storage bin behind the store for those babies!

Heres a picture of another Arthur Brown single on US Track and it also has an Atlantic catalogue number

Heres a bit more from pals on another site

Track 2556 is listed as a reissue of Atlantic 45-2556 ... The Atlantic disc came first..perhaps the release of "Fire" pre-dated the finalising of Atlantic's licensing deal with Track? I don't recall ever seeing a Track-label example, only the Atlantic-label pressings. At any rate, Kit Lambert's imported stock presumably would be the UK Track issue maybe dinked with the large hole but carrying Uk catalogue numbers

The follow-up single, "Nightmare"/"I Put A Spell On You" was released by Atlantic, but issued on the Track label (45-2582). By the way, the example in the picture appears to be a Shelly ("LY") pressing. One-sided White label pressings of "Nightmare" on Track also exist.

And yet another Track label variation