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First coloured vinyl release?

LokoOneLokoOne 1,823 Posts
edited January 2009 in Strut Central
Someone raised this question on another forum and it had me thinking.When was the first coloured vinyl prodcued and who released it? What were some of the ground breaking moments in coloured vinyl...like who's the first to mix up colours, or do a picture vinyl, who developed clear vinyl etcAnd is coloured vinyl made different from noraml vinyl records? Some of my coloured LPs feel more rigid and plastic-ish than the normal LPs....Just curious..... feel free to brag.... I only got about 20 or so colourful pieces.... best one is a tie dye Palito Ortega LP my moms scored for me (its plays like shit...but looks so dope spinning around)

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  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Someone raised this question on another forum and it had me thinking.

    When was the first coloured vinyl prodcued and who released it?


    What were some of the ground breaking moments in coloured vinyl...like who's the first to mix up colours, or do a picture vinyl, who developed clear vinyl etc

    And is coloured vinyl made different from noraml vinyl records? Some of my coloured LPs feel more rigid and plastic-ish than the normal LPs....

    Just curious..... feel free to brag.... I only got about 20 or so colourful pieces.... best one is a tie dye Palito Ortega LP my moms scored for me (its plays like shit...but looks so dope spinning around)

    Very old.

    Seems to me I have seen turn of the century, more than 100 years ago, brown wax.

    There was a Jimmy Rodgers picture disc released in the 1930s.

    I have a few Vogue Picture Discs from the 40s.

    Also brown laminated cardboard Hits Of The Week from the 40s.

    When RCA introduced the 45 around 1950 they put their classical releases on red wax.

    Cook records in the 1950s are on dark translucent wax. Colors vary.

    Fantasy Records did lots of red and blue wax releases in 50s.

    Blue Thumb records in the 70s really liked that marble vinyl look. Buddy and The Jrs and Dave Mason are nearly as common on marble vinyl as they are on black.

    Any way, I don't know the first, but colored wax and pic discs go way way back.
  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    RCA, who debuted the 45 in 1949, color-coded their music like so:

    Popular Music (general): black
    Classical: red
    R&B: orange
    Children's Music: yellow
    Country & Western: green
    Imports/International Music: sky blue
    Oldies/Reissues: dark blue



    But at some point, the coloring system got really arbitrary.
  • LokoOneLokoOne 1,823 Posts
    Dope... thanks for the info...You fellas are way better than wikipedia! (who have none of that info BTW)....

    I like the idea of records being colour coded according to genres/styles....
  • AlmondAlmond 1,427 Posts
  • hcrinkhcrink 8,729 Posts
    Colored vinyl sucks.
  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    Well, I got the pic for reference purposes from a site that spoke about the colored-vinyl collecting, so I won't claim to have taken the shot. But about 6-7 years back, I read a really interesting story about the late 40s vinyl format race (similar to the HD DVD/Blu-Ray today) in which the RCA (45 RPM) and Columbia (33.3 Long-Player) were vying to become industry-dominant. I cannot recall the author offhand, but the subject is well worth looking into from an historical perspective. The color formatting, which I'd barely known beforehand (other than black=popular and red=classical), was fleshed out therein.
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