If you enjoyed the “Jimmie Rodgers puzzle record” post from a week or two ago, I found two more “puzzle records” in a recent stash of 78 rpm records I picked up.
These are fascinating records, I can’t begin to imagine the record cutting craft (and nerves/balls of steel) it took to cut multiple parallel/concentric grooves on one side of a record, especially back in the old OLD days on super-primitive equipment. These guys were artists of record cutting!
The “Jimmie Rodgers puzzle record” I posted was impressive enough; it had three different songs that played on the same side of the record. Depending on where you dropped the needle, it would catch one of three separate grooves and play one of the three songs. Correct me if I’m wrong, but internet research says the first “puzzle plate” record was released in 1910 on Zonophone Records of Calcutta, with three Hindustani music tracks playing at random. Is there an earlier one?
But are you ready for this? “PICK THE WINNER (A Horse Race Game for Parties),” released in 1931, originally in the UK, then on RCA in the States, contains no less than SIX grooves. Each groove contains a short audio recording of a horse race, and when it gets to the end, an announcer says “AND THE WINNER IS . . . NUMBER 4!” And so on.
Not to be outdone, “RECORD GAMES” on the creatively titled SPIN-A-WIN label has two different record “games,” with the packaging printed so you can play the games along with the record. Side A has a horse racing track, very similar to the RCA release, but with a horse’s name announced at the end. Similar to the RCA release, there are six different winners, and thus six different grooves.
The flip side is “LUCKY 13,” and you guessed it—there are thirteen different parallel grooves (numbered 0 through 12) on one side of the record! Totally insane! I can’t imagine how difficult this one must have been to cut. What’s funny is that with a record containing thirteen parallel grooves, the playing time is about ten seconds from start to finish! You know whoever the cutting engineer was, he must have breathed a sigh of relief after he cut thirteen different grooves, one at a time, and finally finished the thirteenth groove without overcutting into one of the other grooves. I am simply in awe of their abilities.
Listen to the records with Deke at Deke’s original Facebook post!
