My geekiness extends to forming attachments to record labels. Currently I’m enamored with American colossus RCA Victor, in particular, their series of Living Stereo recordings that began in 1958. But I do not limit my interests to stereo only. Before the lordly LSC prefix, there was LM—the prefix for RCA’s monophonic albums.
RCA’s 12” LM series began in 1950 with number 1000—the lower numbers were reserved for 10” discs—and continued onwards well into the Living Stereo era and beyond, as RCA released most records both in monophonic LM and stereophonic LSC formats. Nowadays it’s the LSC records that get all the love and command the big bucks on eBay and such, but LMs have their distinct and worthy charms.
Like the shaded-dog Living Stereo discs, RCA LMs are notable for their high-quality pressings and extreme durability. Gramophonic archeology reveals two fundamental label strata: the so-called “outline dogs” that characterized the earlier releases and the “plum dogs” of the full-mature LM years. In both cases the labels are a rich plum color; the earlier discs portray Nipper the Dog as an outline, while the plum dogs give you a fully-painted Nipper against a slightly darker background. Personally I don’t note any difference in pressing quality between the two; throughout the 1950s RCA’s pressing plants were class acts.
A fair number of the earlier LMs were recycled material from the 78 rpm days. Thus an LM might be sonically disappointing; instead of deep early-50s hi-fi you wind up getting the relatively restricted tonal range of earlier audio. However, they’re interesting for the quality of the joins from one side to another—in most cases you just can’t tell that this was originally a set of discs with a maximum of four minutes to a side. Certainly they’re not as much a bother as a set of 78s are; no jumping up to shift discs around every 4 minutes and no back-breaking weight from one of those giant albums. And they’re much, much harder to break.
The majority of LMs, however, are newly-recorded material in plush hi-fi. Later LMs are the monophonic versions of Living Stereo albums. So there’s a lot of great music to be had from those discs, and as a rule they can be acquired for next to nothing. (Or nothing. See Granny’s attic.) Nobody wants mono records any more, after all.
However, one might be inclined to treat them with a certain disdain. Your basic LM from the bargain bin at Amoeba Records is likely to be grubby. The disc inside the jacket may or may not be accompanied by a protective inner sleeve. It may look altogether sad, dusty, forlorn, and uninviting. But those old records just might have surprises locked up inside.
One practice I have found helpful is to give the record—jacket and disc both—as thorough a cleaning and restoration as possible before playing it. If nothing else the process provides a psychological boost towards taking the record more seriously than I might have otherwise; after all, I just spent fifteen minutes laboriously cleaning the thing, removing ancient stickers, and so forth. Providing that old LM with a fresh new inner sleeve and encasing the freshly-cleaned jacket in an outer plastic protector adds yet another degree of legitimacy.
Cleaning a record jacket is simpler than you might think. The front side is typically covered in a moisture-resistant glossy paper. My tools are a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of Formula 409 spray cleaner, a lightly moistened paper towel, and a cotton-gauze towel for final drying and polishing. The Formula 409 is effective at removing accumulated crud, provided you’re careful not to rub through the glossy paper, and provided you keep a careful watch to ensure that you’re not removing the color along with the crud. Most of the gunk on the front of a record jacket is old ink from the back of the next jacket on the shelf. Improperly stored records, particularly those that were stacked up, will tend to trace a ring of the enclosed LP on the jacket front, but the 409 will usually remove the darker edges, even though there’s nothing you can do about any embossing that might have occurred.
In some cases you have to let some gunk go, once it becomes clear that you’re going to tear right through the glossy paper if you persist. There’s also nothing much you can do about the plain-cardboard edges; they’re usually discolored. A bit of bleach on a Q-tip might help to brighten them, but it’s probably not worth the trouble.
At any rate, a light rinsing with the moistened paper towel, followed by a buffing with the cotton-gauze cloth will pull decades off the jacket and render it looking a lot fresher and newer. Additionally, the Formula 409 will remove any lingering musty or dusty odors.
The back is trickier, given that it’s usually just bleached cardboard with printing. However, most markings are light, so some careful work with Formula 409 on a cotton ball will get most of it. It may look as though you’re soaking through the cardboard, but as long as you dry the thing quickly—the cotton-gauze cloth works well—there won’t be any lasting impact. You can’t do anything about age-induced discoloration, but a lot else comes right off. You’ve got to be on guard against marring the cardboard, though.
The big bugaboo: stickers. People put those on their records. Stores put on price tags. They can be a major pain to remove. Store stickers, especially if newer, are usually less of a problem. A very sharp, flat knife with a long thin blade can help. Slide it gently under the edge of the sticker and work your way gently along; the goal is to remove the sticker without tearing the paper underneath. If the sticker comes off, there may be some gluey residue left on the jacket. A drop of naphtha on a cotton ball will remove it instantly. (Naphtha is the primary ingredient in charcoal lighter, such as you use for a outdoor cooker. It has a light odor but evaporates.)
For tougher stickers you have no choice but to use more naphtha. Dip the flat sharp knife in naphtha (or apply with a cotton ball) and then use the knife to deposit the stuff under the sticker surface. It will progress a tick of a millimeter at a time; keep dipping the knife as you go. It might help to start from several different corners of the sticker and then meet in the middle. Once in a while you just can’t succeed without leaving a tear in the jacket, but my knife-in-naphtha technique works well about 90% of the time. I rarely remove stickers from the back of the jacket; it’s almost impossible to get them off without causing damage.
A few carefully-measured pieces of invisible-type tape can be used to repair any splits at the seams. I press the jacket between a pair of wooden wedges to straighten out any corner folds or crumples.
Cleaning the disc is much more straightforward; I use a VPI 16.5 vacuum-style cleaning machine and an anti-static gun afterwards. Then I put the record into a nice new inner sleeve; I’ll keep the old one as well if it is historically valuable—advertising, whatever—but plain old inner liners I just toss. Once the outer jacket is completely dry (that might require an overnight session) I bundle it all up with an outer plastic slip.
In the case of a very fragile jacket, or one that has shrunk to the point that inserting the record is a struggle, I may use a new white cardboard jacket for the disc and include the old jacket inside the outer plastic slip.
It’s a lot of bother for a $1.00 record from the bargain bin. Worth it? Maybe. In a surprising number of cases that LM has never reached the digital age. If it’s badly clicky you can digitize it and apply restoration software, although you can’t do anything about actual groove damage. For me, it’s always worth it just for the joy of seeing some dusty, musty, discarded old thing be given another crack at carrying out its mission of providing music for listeners. Giving it a physical freshening-up in the process seems like the least I can do. And sometimes it repays that attention by providing me with a memorable musical experience. Not bad for a buck and a bit of elbow grease.