[Jukebox-list] Seeburg: Small Hole Thoughts in 1950?

[David Breneman]

--- Automatic Music <jrutoskey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> My question is, did Seeburg plan ahead in 1950 with
> the M100B knowing that it may be necessary to play a
> disc with a small hole-- hence they retained the
> pointed centering pin on the clamp arm? Or was this
> centering pin (which is exactly the same size as
> needed to pin up a small hole record) put there only
> to serve the purpose of centering everything by
> engaging in the small hole of the flywheel? 

I'd say definitely the latter.  Seeburg was a big
proponent of the 45, and Columbia only released 33
singles as a reaction to the 45 (since their LP
project never envisioned a replacement for the 78
single).  Remember that the pin on the clamp not
only centers the record on the flywheel, it also
lifts the record off the ramp.  I'd imagine that
if Seebueg had an effective method of achieving
both those ends, it would be needlessly expensive
to re-engineer that part of the cycle to eliminate
the center pin.

> Was it just luck that a small hole disc will clamp up
> in a Seeburg with almost no modifications to the clamp
> arm disc other than Seeburg cutting back the conical
> portion some to give small hole discs more clamping
> area? 

Not luck so much as good engineering.  Remember, if
the 45 hadn't caught on, the tooling for that clamp
disk could be used for followon 78 mechanisms.


> Perhaps the European market (whose 45's have a
> small hole) was being kept in mind for export
> machines? Were European 45's small hole records in
> 1950? Did they even have 45's over there that early?

Early European 45s adhered to RCA Victor's standard.
They only drifted away from the standard in the mid 50s
with punch-out centers like Capitol used, and eventually
simply pressing non-standard-adhering 45s by the 1980s.

>

David Breneman         david_breneman at yahoo.com


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