McTag wrote:I read that in the days of shellac records, when the material was scarce, old unwanted records (in pieces, maybe) could be returned and the material re-used to press new recordings.
During WWII shellac was so hard to get that even in the USA there were strict limits or record releases, often new records could only be pressed from people bringing in their old records - which is why it's so hard to get recordings from 1942-1947, both released discs and recordings of radio shows.
In my own collection i have much higher numbers of tracks recorded in the late 1930s than I do from 1943 until it starts to pick up again in 1948. Over the rest of the collection it's pretty much a normal distribution.