To make things worst, I live in the country, in the south, where I won't even find a Reinhardt record ! It's all classical and Tino Rossi in poor condition. If I could/would drive hours for hunting, I guess I could find some, even american records. But I don't feel like spending the whole day in my car for some records, I'm not even sure I'd save on money that way. That's a limit I have though.
I saw a bunch of V-Disc, all 12", all jazz, but at 800+ Km from me, I can't spend the money and the time for these records. Just wondering now if I can thust those people with packing such heavy and fragile items.
The one I have (#322) is definitively on shellac, but thiner (and lighter then) than pre-war records.
I'll contact them anyway, and see how they'd pack the whole lot...
Apparently some of the early V-Discs were still on shellac. The army changed this pretty quickly to vinyl, though, because shellac was more difficult to procure since the Japanese had occupied the islands from where it came, and far too breakable.
Just reading the up-thread discussion about the Bill Haley 78, let us take a moment of sympathy for the folks who shelled out big bucks (easily triple digits each for good-condition copie) of one or both of the two picture discs the country group the Down Homers released on Vogue in 1946 (this one and this one) back when it was thought that Bill Haley performed on them. Although Haley was a member of the Down Homers early in his career, and some radio recordings of him with the group exist, about 15 years ago it was confirmed that Haley was not involved on the two records, which I assume had a negative impact on their value (even though they are still beautiful-looking records and I considered paying close to US$100 for one a couple years back, even knowing Haley wasn't on it).
Apparently some of the early V-Discs were still on shellac. The army changed this pretty quickly to vinyl, though, because shellac was more difficult to procure since the Japanese had occupied the islands from where it came, and far too breakable.