I used to do similar when I was a kid. Wrap a piece of A4 paper into a cone. Poke a pin through the small end so it sticks out the other side. Set your dansette to play, but lift the tone arm off - and use the pin in the cone for a stylus. It does work.

There is a precursor ?- 1950's 78's on Pye Nixa are often vinyl and pretty much like a 45 groove?

actually 1955 mate

Running back to Pye, if the timeline in wiki is correct, Pye bought Nixa in 1953, but it was only after Pye bought Polygon ( for the Petula Clark connection mostly ), - 'standard ' 78s as far as I recall, in 1955 merging with Nixa and naming the label Pye Nixa. When ATV bought 50% of the company in 1959 (when - late ) the label got renamed Pye - though so far we have only two clear issues, both 1960, as Pye on 78world. In 1966 ATV bought the other half and presumably this was when the right to use the PYE name for (?25years?) was signed.

Agreed - there are also, of course, several examples of 12" singles with one side playing at 33.3, which do not an album make!

There is a new fashion for issuing contemporary singles on 12" vinyl with one side playing at 78 rpm. These are of course microgroove pressings and are certainly not intended for playing with a steel needle. I imagine that the expectation will be that the 78 side is unlikely ever to be played as the only turntables capable of this are distinctly vintage, though no doubt cheapo USB models will be appearing soon.

So far most of these have been added as 12" Singles and I suggest that these '78s' do not belong on 78 RPM World, where we should restrict ourselves to old-school shellac and vinyl records which can be played with a needle at the business end, or latterly with a turn-over stylus.

How do other users feel about this?

- Jules

I'm not sure the capability of the turntable itself matters any more in some senses Juke... you can play (and record) at a different speed, then alter the speed of the recording in a programme like Audacity.

Jules,

I do see your point, albeit from my own somewhat typically weird POV, which I why I argued a while back against the inclusion of kiddie records (recommending a 'kiddie record word') and cylinders here in the 78s.

Cylinders and diamond discs are as incompatible as (in fact more so) as are the microgroove 78s.

To my eyes, it sounds like you are essentially saying that only 78s from the 'golden age' (roughly 1960 outside the 3rd world) are the only ones that belong on the 78 site.

If you are going to use groove size as a gauge, the the Bell 78s of the 1950s no longer qualify, because even as 7 inch, being microgroove, they said on the label 'use lp stylus'

Nope -- the modern 78s belong here -- if only because they are a continuing tribute the beauty of a rapidly rotating record.

I'd say -- put 'em in both places!

Amy

Referring to USB turntables that spin at 78 my Maplin cheapy sourced one does , but for the wide-groove ones it needs an additional '78' stylus, and of course the one I need they don't currently have in stock ( really the ION turntables are not the best things to play most records on as the tone-arm mechanism is fairly crude )

I think they were often played on those red plastic battery turntables with inbuilt speaker, sold in toy departments of suburban department stores, they sounded terrible, when I was 3 I ran away from one to find a proper record shop.