White or Not? Vintage LP covers ...

[neveronfriday]

Hi everyone,

as I've mentioned elsewhere, I sometimes spend some time reworking scans of old record covers (David Stone Martin, Alex Steinweiss and some others).

The problem I have is that sometimes I cannot find a source anywhere (book, Internet) to check if a cover was originally white or another tone, for example off-white, beige, etc. I'd like to get as close to the original as possible.

So, I started this thread to basically check with you if you can help me out.

I'll start with the first one:

Cover 01: White or Not? ..... Johnny Hodges. Creamy. 1955. (The name would suggest another tone).

Thanks for your help.

Edit: Attached file is a small copy of one of three versions I made (this is the white one).

Edited February 5, 2010 by neveronfriday

[brownie]

The white cover you post is from the Verve reissue.

Not sure the original Norgran release was that white...

[neveronfriday]

Yes, Guy, that's the problem.

I also have a reworked original cover, but there's no telling what the original color was. The best scan I could find (years ago) was an off-whitish/beige color of a copy that had been kept sealed for ages. But it wasn't white. I even contacted the guy and he couldn't tell me (and wasn't about to unseal it).

When I look at Verve etc. reissues, they almost always go with white although I'm not sure if they decided to change that for the reissue (and that goes for a lot of David Stone Martin covers ... Hamp/Getz, some Peterson ones, etc. ... they're all white in their reissue forms but I have my doubt they were like that ... or that clean and often sterile a white -- in their original form).

Another example of what I mean is this one (working on that on and off at the moment). This is the original before I went at it:

Edited February 5, 2010 by neveronfriday

[Big Beat Steve]

Can't say I am an expert on original covers but from all I have seen (either in my own collection or elsewhere) I'd say that 50s U.S. covers with a "white" base color rarely really were THAT bright sparkling white (e.g. if the degree of "whiteness" noticeable on those unworn edges of the front paper folded around the seams and glued over by the back cover paper - which may have come unglued at the edges, revealing the edges of the front paper - is anything to go by, for example). Any shade of "off-white" seems to fit it far better.

I'd alsssay it sometimes depends on the pressing run. One pressing of the 50s may have been whiter than another only marginally older or more recent. At least I remember having seen records in comparable condition that did differ noticeably in that respect although the country of issue was the same and they really were of virtually the same age as far as anybody could tell.

Interesting project, BTW, neveronfriday. Trying to go Gokudo one better?

Edited February 5, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[neveronfriday]

Thanks for your input.

I would agree that the sterile white (that's what I would call it) that's so often used for CD reissues is off. But, when I check out various books about record covers (Eric Kohler's "In the Groove" is a good example) , I find that either they used scans of the same redone covers for reissues as a reference point ... or the covers were that white.

An off-white is probably what I'm going to go for in these cases and hope I'm not straying from the original too far.

And, no, I'm not competing with Gokudo.

I do this kind of work when I need to turn my brain off completely for a while. I just concentrate on pixels or ... large areas of white.

Besides, I'm not putting these online because every idiot on the Internet (pirates) steals them, links to them, eats your bandwith, etc. Just keeping up with blocking Russian sites from accessing a few I had online years ago was a 24/7 job (I had 6 covers online in hi-res format for about two years and the pirates alone ate over 8GB a month of my bandwidth). Those people are just too lazy to host whatever they rip off on their own turf, wherever that might be.

Can't say I am an expert on original covers but from all I have seen (either in my own collection or elsewhere) I'd say that 50s U.S. covers with a "white" base color rarely really were THAT bright sparkling white (e.g. if the degree of "whiteness" noticeable on those unworn edges of the front paper folded around the seams and glued over by the back cover paper - which may have come unglued at the edges, revealing the edges of the front paper - is anything to go by, for example). Any shade of "off-white" seems to fit it far better.

I'd alsssay it sometimes depends on the pressing run. One pressing of the 50s may have been whiter than another only marginally older or more recent. At least I remember having seen records in comparable condition that did differ noticeably in that respect although the country of issue was the same and they really were of virtually the same age as far as anybody could tell.

Interesting project, BTW, neveronfriday. Trying to go Gokudo one better?

[Teasing the Korean]

It seems that a number of LP covers from the 1950s seem to discolor or yellow with age. I'm thinking of things on Clef, Norgran, Emarcy, MGM. Especially LPs with the really thick cardboard. So it's hard to say.

[Chuck Nessa]

Concerning Hamp and Getz, never had the Norgran but had a copy of Verve 8128 and it was white. Obviously a 3 color job printed on white paper.