This is probably a pretty dumb question to some people here but being in the US I have no idea. I have seen solid center UK 45s and the ones with the triangle that you can pop out. I'm wondering about a record like this:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAT-LARRYS-BAND-Center-City-Nighttime-Boogie-WMOT-10951-45-rpm-R-B-DISCO-FUNK-/141053677801?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item20d77450e9

 

It's a UK press record. I looked on musicstack and there are solid center copies. Does that mean that all copies had solid centers? This copy doesn't look like it had the triangle thing popped out. Does this mean that someone manually dinked it with a machine or something? Or was this pressed in the UK with the larger center hole? The copy pictured does look like the center is worn / bulging out. Also wondering about the general history of centers in UK presses and why they didn't have the larger centers in the first place.

 

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Hi Bob a lot of UK records didn't have centres. I am thinking Mercury, Philips and associated labels that I can recall for instance. They came with a "spider" plastic three legged thing in the middle to adapt to turntables. I also think some Sue Records may have come minus centres but I am sure one of the British experts can confirm.....

 

Companies like EMI, RCA and Decca always had centres though as far as I know and I think your Fat Larry would originally have had one too.

 

I think the final question should be the other way round (i.e. why do US 45's have a large hole). Since all 33s and 78s have a small hole......so it is logical (to me) that 45s would follow. Is it something to do with shipping weight and the amount of jukeboxes in the USA which played 45's?

 

 

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by Steve G

Polydor had a mixture of dinked and small hole'd UK releases in the late 60's to the mid 70's and well as Atlantic. Otis Clay's - Baby Jane on Atlantic was only a dinked release and Edwin Starr's Stop Her On Sight on Polydor came out in both variants.

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by John Reed

Yes, and other polydor's had a small hole (Inspirations, Holidays etc.). Maybe around 68/9 was when a lot of records came without centres.

 

It's not a dumb question at all, I am expecting when I next look there will be about 50 replies

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by Steve G

 

I think the final question should be the other way round (i.e. why do US 45's have a large hole). Since all 33s and 78s have a small hole......so it is logical (to me) that 45s would follow. Is it something to do with shipping weight and the amount of jukeboxes in the USA which played 45's?

 

Given that the U.S.A.is usually in front of most countries, when it comes to technology and

RCA invented the 45 in 1949 according to Wiki.

A better question is why didn't all 45's, in all counties, follow the U.S. and have the large hole centres ?

Begs the question did any early (1950's) U.S. 45s have small (British size) centre holes ?

 

Kegsy

The story of why US 45s have large holes and LPs had small holes is pretty well documented, it comes down to the format wars (RCA vs. Columbia) and an attempt to force an incompatibility between two types of records. Instead of one winning, one type ended up being the format for singles and the other for long players. However the way these got filtered down to other countries probably makes the story even more complicated, as to what technologies / formats / musics were popular in those places (for example, India using 78s into the '70s).

 

I still don't understand though -- do you think the single pictured in the ebay auction had a spider snap in adapter when it was manufactured that someone just took out? Because it definitely was manufactured in a small hole version, as I found on musicstack. Did someone manually "dink" it?

Interesting article as to why U.S. 45s have a large centre.

 

https://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/4/15/why-is-the-hole-on-a-45-rpm-record-so-big.html

It's hard to ID every UK 45 that was pressed up with both solid centres & plastic spider centres as so many appeared in both formats.

To pick on one label, take say Polydor UK ..................

They made 2 types of 'solid centre' 45's ........ ones with a true solid centre (such as the Marva Josie 45 shown below) and ones with 3 pronged centres that could be dinked out for jukebox use. This practice seemed to hold firm thru to 1968.

From 1968 onwards, Polydor made both solid centre & plastic spider centred 45's. If a 45 sold well, it could appear in both formats.

If a 45 was re-promoted, again the 2nd press may have been spider centred (such as Edwin's "Stop Her On Sight").

 

I'd guess that as "Centre City" sold so well in the UK, it was pressed up in both forms. 

To answer your question ........ YES,

I think the single pictured in the ebay auction had a spider snap in adapter when it was manufactured that someone just took out.

I can't be certain (memory is lapsing fast in old age) but I'm sure my UK 45 copy of "Center City" has a solid centre.

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by Roburt

Bob, where a 3 / 4 pronged UK 45 solid centre has been dinked out, you can see the indentations next to where the prong went. 

I'd presume the UK presses always had centres so they could be played on record players where they were stacked - sorry don't know the technical term for it - on the centre pole, not much chance of being able to stack up to 8 records on there with no centres in your records.

p.s. is it just me or does anyone else feel vaguely excited when they see a photo like the one below - transports me back to the 60's

 

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by Pete S

I'd presume the UK presses always had centres so they could be played on record players where they were stacked - sorry don't know the technical term for it - on the centre pole, not much chance of being able to stack up to 8 records on there with no centres in your records.

p.s. is it just me or does anyone else feel vaguely excited when they see a photo like the one below - transports me back to the 60's

 

Reminds me of my Childhood that Pete, they do look rather good don`t they

I'd presume the UK presses always had centres so they could be played on record players where they were stacked - sorry don't know the technical term for it - on the centre pole, not much chance of being able to stack up to 8 records on there with no centres in your records.

p.s. is it just me or does anyone else feel vaguely excited when they see a photo like the one below - transports me back to the 60's

 

 

 

Pete, RCA "players" had a centre pole which fit the U.S. style large centres too.

Kegsy

Aretha "don't let me lose this dream" uk Atlantic for example as well, mine has no signs what so ever of having any spider or solid centre but I've always believed this to be the case that it was uk release with no solid centre and looks like U.S import centre

Dave L

Given that the U.S.A.is usually in front of most countries, when it comes to technology and

RCA invented the 45 in 1949 according to Wiki.

A better question is why didn't all 45's, in all counties, follow the U.S. and have the large hole centres ?

Begs the question did any early (1950's) U.S. 45s have small (British size) centre holes ?

 

Kegsy

 

And yet US albums do have small hole centres

Pete, RCA "players" had a centre pole which fit the U.S. style large centres too.

Kegsy

 

Like this....................

This is probably a pretty dumb question to some people here but being in the US I have no idea. I have seen solid center UK 45s and the ones with the triangle that you can pop out. I'm wondering about a record like this:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAT-LARRYS-BAND-Center-City-Nighttime-Boogie-WMOT-10951-45-rpm-R-B-DISCO-FUNK-/141053677801?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item20d77450e9

 

It's a UK press record. I looked on musicstack and there are solid center copies. Does that mean that all copies had solid centers? This copy doesn't look like it had the triangle thing popped out. Does this mean that someone manually dinked it with a machine or something? Or was this pressed in the UK with the larger center hole? The copy pictured does look like the center is worn / bulging out. Also wondering about the general history of centers in UK presses and why they didn't have the larger centers in the first place.

 

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

Hi Bob.Yes there are both machines and hand held contraptions for cutting out solid centres. I think your example has been removed with a hand held cutter. If you zoom in and look at the 'Nighttime Boogie' side, you can see at about 7 o'clock on the centre where the cut was started/finished and left the vinyl a bit rough and jagged around the hole.

 

 - Kev.

Thanks Kevin, that was the most direct answer to the specific question about this 45. It was probably a solid center 45 and you're saying it was machine dinked. Wonder how it ended up in the US and if it was dinked overseas, at a store in the US, or at home in the US. I hit "marked solved" but I didn't want to kill the larger discussion so I unmarked it.

 

Also, I'm familiar with the 3 pronged centers that are cut and are attached to the center hole so it looks like there's a triangle in the center. I also know that when these are removed it's visible where the 3 prongs were. I'm confused by the term "spider centers", is that referring to the cut-out centers or is referring to a fully dinked center filled with a snap in adapter?

I'd presume the UK presses always had centres so they could be played on record players where they were stacked - sorry don't know the technical term for it - on the centre pole, not much chance of being able to stack up to 8 records on there with no centres in your records.

p.s. is it just me or does anyone else feel vaguely excited when they see a photo like the one below - transports me back to the 60's

 

Though slightly off the original topic, looking at this old record player raised an interesting question - what on earth was the 16 rpm switch on the dial for? The other three speeds are obvious but I've never seen a 16 rpm record. A quick 'Google' search revealed this : https://jake0147.tripod.com/id4.html

 

Just thought you might be interested.

 

Thanks Kevin, that was the most direct answer to the specific question about this 45. It was probably a solid center 45 and you're saying it was machine dinked. Wonder how it ended up in the US and if it was dinked overseas, at a store in the US, or at home in the US. I hit "marked solved" but I didn't want to kill the larger discussion so I unmarked it.

 

Also, I'm familiar with the 3 pronged centers that are cut and are attached to the center hole so it looks like there's a triangle in the center. I also know that when these are removed it's visible where the 3 prongs were. I'm confused by the term "spider centers", is that referring to the cut-out centers or is referring to a fully dinked center filled with a snap in adapter?

 

 

Spider centres in UK terms are the separate plastic pieces that are snapped into large

centre holes so they can be played on standard LP size spindles.

As these images.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=record+adapter+images&newwindow=1&hl=en&qscrl=1&rlz=1T4DSGL_en___PT417&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=STwwUtTsMIWN7Qbes4DAAg&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=628

 

I still don't understand though -- do you think the single pictured in the ebay auction had a spider snap in adapter when it was manufactured that someone just took out? Because it definitely was manufactured in a small hole version, as I found on musicstack. Did someone manually "dink" it?

There is another on ebay (see below) which looks a lot neater than your example - so it could of been factory pressed in addition to the small center run.   However, I don't remember the plastic pop out spiders being in UK 45's as late as 77.  They tended to be the Polydor distributed stuff like Atlantic, Mojo etc - late 60's early 70's.    

 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fat-Larrys-Band-Center-City-Wmot-70s-hear-/281164070587?pt=UK_Records&hash=item4176af3ebb

 

I know our local record shop - Alan Fearnleys in Middlesbough  had a  hand held contraption as mentioned by Kev for dinking out solid 45's for Juke box use.  But would there of been so many copies of Fat Larry done this way so that there is now a decent supply of them on ebay? 

Seem to remember Jon Ford on Philips not having a centre and was assured buy the seller they all came like that.

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by mrtag

Spider centres in UK terms are the separate plastic pieces that are snapped into large

centre holes so they can be played on standard LP size spindles.

As these images.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=record+adapter+images&newwindow=1&hl=en&qscrl=1&rlz=1T4DSGL_en___PT417&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=STwwUtTsMIWN7Qbes4DAAg&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=628

 

ok thanks, I'm familiar with "snap in adapters". thanks again.

ok thanks, I'm familiar with "snap in adapters". thanks again.

 

 

Hope all this has solved your problem, now you can concentrate your considerable knowledge

back to solving the Superiors Auger records mystery.  

Seem to remember Jon Ford on Philips not having a centre and was assured buy the seller they all came like that.

Althought i'm not a UK collector I only remember seeing dinked releases of "You Got Me Where You Want Me", but some of his other Phillips releases did have centres.

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by John Reed

Though slightly off the original topic, looking at this old record player raised an interesting question - what on earth was the 16 rpm switch on the dial for? The other three speeds are obvious but I've never seen a 16 rpm record. A quick 'Google' search revealed this : https://jake0147.tripod.com/id4.html

 

Just thought you might be interested.

 

 

I've seen 16rpm records, my Grandad had a couple, I think they were spoken word.

Althought i'm not a UK collector I only remember seeing dinked releases of "You Got Me Where You Want Me", but some of his other Phillips releases did have centres.

 

I'm not going to say they don't exist but I've only ever seen large centre copies as well.  You're right about his other ones having push out centres.

I've seen 16rpm records, my Grandad had a couple, I think they were spoken word.

 

 

I think Julian Bentley has some in his play box.

 

kegsy

I think Julian Bentley has some in his play box.

 

kegsy

SOD OFF Kegsy, you're only jealous that I have original vinyl only!!!!!!!!

(still can't get the smiley thing to work!)

Althought i'm not a UK collector I only remember seeing dinked releases of "You Got Me Where You Want Me", but some of his other Phillips releases did have centres.

The Jon Ford on the JM auction finishing tonight has the large centre. I always assumed they were produced like that to be Juke Box compatible, but seems not.

The Jon Ford on the JM auction finishing tonight has the large centre. I always assumed they were produced like that to be Juke Box compatible, but seems not.

 

Well I think they were to be honest, there's no other reason why they would have been pressed with large centres, maybe Polygram just wanted to fit in with the rest of their European releases?  As far as I can remember, no other UK companies were producing large centre 45's.  They did variations, to cater for jukeboxes, hence some solid centres and some push outs, but none were actually large hole centres except for that group including Polydor, Philips, Fontana, Mojo, Atlantic, Mercury, Janus, etc

Looking at the record, i would say it is an ex juke box disc, would have originaly came with a solid centre.

This is probably a pretty dumb question to some people here but being in the US I have no idea. I have seen solid center UK 45s and the ones with the triangle that you can pop out. I'm wondering about a record like this:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FAT-LARRYS-BAND-Center-City-Nighttime-Boogie-WMOT-10951-45-rpm-R-B-DISCO-FUNK-/141053677801?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item20d77450e9

 

It's a UK press record. I looked on musicstack and there are solid center copies. Does that mean that all copies had solid centers? This copy doesn't look like it had the triangle thing popped out. Does this mean that someone manually dinked it with a machine or something? Or was this pressed in the UK with the larger center hole? The copy pictured does look like the center is worn / bulging out. Also wondering about the general history of centers in UK presses and why they didn't have the larger centers in the first place.

 

Thanks in advance for any insight.

looks similar to this one to me it does not look as though the centre has been pushed out either though john states it has been    https://www.raresoulman.co.uk/d/200189/FAT_LARRYS_BAND

kev

Edited September 11, 201311 yr by kevinsoulman

I think Roburt made reference to it above, but I just got the irony of the record being titles "center city".

I have one or two UK 45's that dont have centers notably a beat track I have midnight moses bye Alex harvey on fontana

I have one or two UK 45's that dont have centers notably a beat track I have midnight moses bye Alex harvey on fontana

 

I think all UK copies of that have no centre, but people often mix up the Dutch copy with the Uk and the Dutch one does have a centre.

I think all UK copies of that have no centre, but people often mix up the Dutch copy with the Uk and the Dutch one does have a centre.

 

I think all copies are I just dont get why they used to do it the strange world of record collecting

 HI ALL......I'M SURE THIS IS RIGHT, THAT THE ONLY RECORDS WITHOUT A HOLE, ARE VIRGIN RECORDS  DAVE K

USA 45rpm record manufacturers would have saved a lot of vinyl by having a large centre hole, which would have cut costs. 

 

Approx every tenth record would be free, compared to the amount of plastic in a solid centre record pressing run.

 

Cheaper shipping weights as well with a large hole record.

I'd presume the UK presses always had centres so they could be played on record players where they were stacked - sorry don't know the technical term for it - on the centre pole, not much chance of being able to stack up to 8 records on there with no centres in your records.

p.s. is it just me or does anyone else feel vaguely excited when they see a photo like the one below - transports me back to the 60's

 

 

This is a staged shot isn't it? Note the switch is in the off position so the idler would have been disengaged and the platter wouldn't be spinning. (Dim and distant memories were stirred yesterday when I was trying to work out why a BSR deck wasn't working).  

This is a staged shot isn't it? Note the switch is in the off position so the idler would have been disengaged and the platter wouldn't be spinning. (Dim and distant memories were stirred yesterday when I was trying to work out why a BSR deck wasn't working).  

 

It had to be because if the record was spinning the photo would blur, I presume?

It had to be because if the record was spinning the photo would blur, I presume?

 

The whole spindle wouldn't spin - just the record playing underneath, The "Philips" would stay where it was.

The whole spindle wouldn't spin - just the record playing underneath, The "Philips" would stay where it was.

 

Yeah I know how a record player works Mick 

I'm talking about the record on the bottom which is 'playing'

Most UK 45s also had the 'grips' around the outside of the label to enable the stacked records as above to move as one.

Aretha "don't let me lose this dream" uk Atlantic for example as well, mine has no signs what so ever of having any spider or solid centre but I've always believed this to be the case that it was uk release with no solid centre and looks like U.S import centre

Dave L

Had a few copies of this,all had solid centres,wasn't the missing centres related to the oil crisis?

It had to be because if the record was spinning the photo would blur, I presume?

 

I do it all the time and there is no blur (nothing fancy - a very old Fuji Finepix camera with flash and auto setting).

 

 HI ALL.... If they (bootleggers) ever got their mits on a UK stamper that pressed up records with middles and outer grips, I shudder to think, it's getting bad enough with the psych bootlegs on UK labels,  DAVE K