Phonoland

I'd like to throw this question out to those of you who collect phonographs and related electronics: I'm trying to identify the source of a little flimsy record I found some time ago. It's thin green plastic, is about 4" in diameter, has a square center hole (standard spindle diameter, only square) and is recorded at 33 RPM. I'm guessing it's from some toy recorder as the voices on the record are obviously kids (at one point they even mention Paul McCartney, so it might be from the 1960's or 1970's) and it's obviously an amateur recording but I'm not sure if it's a doll or some other gizmo. Has anyone out there ever heard of such a thing?

This was probably from a dictating machine from the 1940s or 1950s. I have a bunch of 6" Dictograph blanks. I seem to recall that, at one time, Dictaphone used 4" discs.

Dictograph used a constant groove velocity system that drive the turntable from a roller on the recording head, so the rotation speed increased as the groove approached the spindle. But I made a special attachment that made these discs fit a Stewart-Warner home recording machine I used to have. Thus I was able to record them as very thin 6" 78s.

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I also have some thin 4" commercial releases from 1969:
Light my Fire/Break on through - The Doors
See You in September/Go Away, Little Girl - The Happenings

They have the standard spindle hole, but are much thinner than an LP.

I modified my Collaro Conquest so it can play them manually. Before the modification, it would neither let me put the stylus on the record (it tripped), nor allow the arm enough travel to reach the inner limit of the record. Since then, I found a way to put the stylus on the record without the mod, but the other mod is necessary so the arm can move close enough to the spindle to play the last groove.

The only difference between my record and your description of the Dictaphone records is that I wasn't able to detect any difference in voice speeds as the record played. Then again, it's only been recently that I've been able to play the thing and I don't remember a lot about the actual recording.
Your commercial releases are the little Philco records from around the time period you described. I've heard that there is a special player for those records but I can't recall ever seeing one. For small records such as that, I've had pretty good luck with my Vestax turntable - there's no automatic return on it so I can play records right up to the label (if you've had experiences with home recordings, you know that some folks cut the disc all the way to the label sometimes) and it even plays those older "play inside out" transcription discs without a hitch.
Do you know of any pre-WWII home recording machine which used solid aluminum (as opposed to acetate-covered metal) discs? I have one with no label information but the recording mentions a date of 1937.

My description was a Dictograph, not a Dictophone. The Dictophone used a turntable with a square spindle.

Okay, thanks for the correction. I guess it was a couple kids messing around in Dad's office or something. So now I know. That's what I love about this forum - I've gotten so many mysteries solved here. It's better than the attitude of most local dealers who think "If it isn't worth money, I don't know anything about it".

It might be that someone bought an old Dictaphone (the contemporary ones in the 1960s used cassettes - I have a cassette one) at a pawnshop or used electronics store, and was playing with it.