Large centre hole single puzzle

[Martin Bush]

Hello all

I know why you often find UK singles with large centre holes - they've been 'dinked' for jukeboxes. I also know that many US singles and also Jamaican ones were sold that way from new.

So far so good.

But I've come across something I can't explain.

In my quest to collect singles by the Bonzo Dog Band I've found that every listing I've found for 'Im the urban Spaceman' on the original UK Liberty label are large centre hole copies. I can't believe it was such a popular jukebox single that all copies in circulation are dinked. Surely there should be a decent supply of intact copies as it was a hit.

So, were any UK singles sold from new with the large centre hole? If so would this be one, or is there something very coincidental going on?

Martin

[winston_1]

Some UK singles were sold with large centre holes with an adapter fitted. The Polydor label often did this.

[lazythread]

The very first EMI (HMV, Columbia, Parlophone) 45rpm records were pressed with large holes, this would have been around 1952/3 I think. Not sure about Decca who possibly preceded them. Shortly after both EMI and Decca generally pressed with "spiders" so that you could play on a standard machine or break it out to play on a large spindle one, like a jukebox. I think that the spider was "dinked" after pressing as a few EMI singles were solid.

Large hole records were quite common among smaller labels, possibly depending on the pressing company they used. Polygram often pressed with large holes.

[Brigham]

The large centre hole was part of the spec. for the 'new, unbreakable 45s'.
The marketing was, that you could pick it up without handling the playing surface.
I'm not sure when or why, but in the UK it didn't catch on, and 45s began to be pressed with the small centre hole, as used on LPs and the 'normal' 78s.
The whole LP/45 issue is fascinating; a 'one-man' format war.

['LIVEWIRE?']

Some UK Liberty 45s were issued from new with the large centre hole. I have one (Eddie Cochran's Summertime Bles/Let's Get Together (C'mon Everybody) reissue in 1967 or 68 Not sure who distributed Liberty in the UK then, but it was between the time Decca issued them on London-American, and the Blacl label EMI Pressings, so about the time the Bonzo Dog Band's records were current.

[mark_in_manc]

Martin -

I expect you know about these, but just in case you don't - you can search for '7" spindle adaptor' on the normal auction sites. This kind of thing comes up:

https://tinyurl.com/y7z9e8vo

I don't know if you're a record collector, or you just want to play the things. If the latter, then this is the traditional way of playing cheap, used jukebox singles which were re-sold back in the day.

(My university halls bar still had a 7" jukebox going commercially, in '89-90. I ought to remember the selection as it was placed on my bedroom ceiling, but mercifully I don't. Something has been lost with music's ubiquity - it is no longer possible to announce to the pub that "amongst all this you've given me to sort through, now HERE is a track you really ought to be able to appreciate". To universal groans of "oh no, it's HIM again". )

cheers
Mark

[vidjoman]

US singles always had a large hole, not just for jukeboxes. However some jukebox’s could also play US mini albums, 7 inch but ran at 33. These had a small hole and the jukebox could differentiate between the hole sizes and play at the correct speed. I think that in the UK there were many auto-changers that had a fixed spindle and could only play small hole discs, hence 45’s with small holes. Somewhere in about 1970 UK singles stopped having the easy option of pressing out the centre and were solid discs with small holes.

['LIVEWIRE?']

At one time it was possible to buy adaptor spindles which would allow autochangers (BSR & Garrard at any rate) to play large centre hole 45s. They were model or series-specific, and do turn up on eBay from time to time. Many years ago, also, there were single speed record players sold in the UK which only played large centre hole 45s. The Philips 'Auto-Mignon' In-car record player, which is often discussed on the forum, was also designed to only accept large centre hole 45s, so this type of record must have been the norm. in the Netherlands in the late 50s/early to mid 60s, when the A-M was being produced.

[Station X]

Originally Posted by Martin Bush

In my quest to collect singles by the Bonzo Dog Band I've found that every listing I've found for 'Im the urban Spaceman' on the original UK Liberty label are large centre hole copies.

Martin

I dug out my own copy of "I'm the urban spaceman". It's on the Liberty label, has a large centre hole and shows no sign of having been "dinked". Thinking back nearly 50 years, I believe it came with a press in centre looking like an Isle of Man symbol. I play it using an adaptor.

[Martin Bush]

From what it says in post #5 the Bonzo Dog Urban Spaceman singles may have been sold from new with the large hole, which is interesting. I have found photos of an intact version of this disc, but all the ones for sale on ebay, Amazon and so on are dinked. No other Bonzo Liberty discs are like this.

I guess I must be a record collector by now and while I don't pay big sums I do like to have things right. So I only want a large holed record if that's how it came new. I suppose that is in part down to when I was given jukebox records from a local pub and I think my dad said they were knackered. I think you could also buy this sort of record under the name 'Pop-Ex' (I seem to remember those being on sale in Blackpool).

I do have a solid adaptor for my deck and one day I like the idea of having a nice looking style steel cone type as used by reggae enthusiasts.

[llama]

Here's what it should look like.
The only other act I could remember for being on Liberty are the Idle Race. My 3 singles of theirs have a) a solid middle like most 45s, b) a spidery adaptor like the Bonzo's one and c) an adaptor like the one resting on the Liberty sleeve in the picture and sold for the ex-jukebox market. I believe my c) is wrong and should be a spidery adaptor like in the Bonzo's single; so it should match b) as I don't reckon many Idle Race singles made it to jukeboxes.
Graham

[ToneArm]

Discogs is a great resource for researching records online.

Looking at Urban Spaceman Discogs lists 22 different versions. Interestingly most of the UK releases include "Lar" in the summary description - never noticed this abbreviation before but it seems likely it means large hole! A small hole version does exist though, if you really want one, and Discogs has a picture to prove it. Summary description says "Pus" instead of "Lar", but I can't guess what that means.

[Nuvistor]

I think this has been posted before on the forum but if you have not seen it the document is a good read of the implementation of the 45 rpm with large centre hole.
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/record...y/speed45.html

[Station X]

Originally Posted by ToneArm

Discogs is a great resource for researching records online.

Looking at Urban Spaceman Discogs lists 22 different versions. Interestingly most of the UK releases include "Lar" in the summary description - never noticed this abbreviation before but it seems likely it means large hole! A small hole version does exist though, if you really want one, and Discogs has a picture to prove it. Summary description says "Pus" instead of "Lar", but I can't guess what that means.

That's interesting. That disc label is identical to mine, but the large centre hole is a perfect circle with no sign of the centre having been removed.

[ms660]

I wonder if the release date in America has any relevance.

Lawrence.

['LIVEWIRE?']

THe Eddie Cochran Single to which I referred in post#5 is the same blue(Turqoise?)label as thaose shown in post # by Llama(Graham) I bought it new in '67 or'68, and it may well have come with the 'spider' adaptor as shown in that picture. I didn't know that those Librty 45s were also issued with the 'knock out' centre having the standard 0.25" diameter hole.

[Richard_FM]

I heard it was due to RCA's autochange mechanism, which I believe HMV made a licensed version of.

I did wonder why 45RPM was chosen, though interestingly 33 + 45 = 78(!)

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by 'LIVEWIRE?'

The Philips 'Auto-Mignon' In-car record player, which is often discussed on the forum, was also designed to only accept large centre hole 45s, so this type of record must have been the norm. in the Netherlands in the late 50s/early to mid 60s, when the A-M was being produced.

I can remember my parents buying me a 7" 45rpm disk while on holiday in France in the late 1970s. It was a new pressing but had a large centre hole.

[cheerfulcharlie]

The US Single release Dec 1968 - just to show that the blue label in the UK was not used.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by Richard_FM

I heard it was due to RCA's autochange mechanism, which I believe HMV made a licensed version of.

I did wonder why 45RPM was chosen, though interestingly 33 + 45 = 78(!)

Here's a pic of what I believe is the HMV version of the RCA changer, though any HMV logo has long since been polished away. The clue is that it's fitted with a 50Hz motor. Otherwise it appears identical to the RCA product, so much so that I suspect there's a high RCA production content in it, maybe locally assembled in Hayes to minimise import duty. Whether it was launched in the UK to fill the gap before HMV tardily decided to introduce it own LPs in 1953, I'd be interested to know.

It works well, with an alarmingly fast change between discs. I guess that, being designed to compete with the rival LP, the gap between record sides had to be a minimum. As you can perhaps see from the motion blur in the picture, the whole spindle assembly and record stack rotate with the turntable. This seems to minimise the problems of records sticking and/or slipping, which can otherwise be a problem with 45s on record changers.

The main restoration task was to replace the defunct (or course!) crystal cartridge with a red/black Chinese one - which gives a cheerful account of itself in this application.

Martin