Here are few photos of the original metal parts (stampers and mothers) of Korean recordings made by the Japanese Victor company (JVC), recorded between 1928 to 1942. These metal parts were completely forgotten while stored in the vault of JVC until 1992, when they were discovered during their clearance of the company vault. A total of 587 sides was discovered, which is slightly more than one fourth of the entire Victor output of 2,010 sides (1,005 double-sided records). These were given to a Korean record company in 1992, and there were some CD reissues transferred from these metal parts (mothers). The reissue series was one of the very few reissue series of historic recordings ever issued in this country. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt in 1998 and these metal parts were moved to a warehouse until 2012, completely neglected for 14 years. Because of the dampness and other environmental elements of the warehouse, a lot of these metal parts got deteriorated with some visible corrosion or other blemishes. In 2012, these metal parts were donated to the National Folk Museum of Korea for permanent storage and preservation. The Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea also designated them as Registered Cultural Heritage artifacts (Register call number No. 477) Unfortunately, there are no special arrangements to preserve or digitize the contents of these precious recordings at this point because of the lack of interest and funding. Anyway, I was lucky enough to work on a project with a couple of other researchers to list and identify the contents of these metal parts, which was really delightful since almost half of the recordings on these metal parts is not known to exist in their original 78rpm pressings. I wish someday the museum or anyone interested in these recordings would try to make some fresh new transfers from the mothers, or try to make vinyl pressings using the stamper for the sake of archival access, but I have a feeling that it would be an impossible dream.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 05:26:55 +0000
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