![]() ![]() ![]() Among the titles recorded were "Rule Britannia" and "God Save the King", sung by Peter Dawson. This gramophone was capable of playing the six bespoke recordings from the His Master’s Voice record label (HMV). It had running water, electricity as well as extensive wardrobe of clothing and accessories by the likes of Louis Vuitton and Cartier.Įverything inside the house was one twelfth the size of its real life equivalent, including a specially created gramophone. By the end of 1924 The Queen’s Dolls’ House was complete. Inside it would contain luxury items made in miniature size. In 1920 plans were made for a special dolls' house to be made for Queen Mary. Of course a tiny playable record needs a teeny gramophone player to play it on, and this is where the Royal connection comes in. Listen BBC music researcher Nigel Griffiths on the moment the record was shown to the Queen. Advances in plastics have now rendered it obsolete as a moulding compound for records. Shellac, a natural resin, was made into a compound that, until the 1940s, was often used in the production of 78 rpm discs. This little record, pressed in the 1920s, is made from ‘shellac’. Today, most vinyl is made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) resin, but in the early days, various materials were used to make records, including hard rubber. Whether this is information is true or not has been lost in the mists of time, but what is known is that the disc has a fitting royal connection: the music on the record is "God Save the King". Rumour has it that it was sent to the BBC by the Royal Family no less, who thought the BBC should have a copy. It’s stored in the BBC archive at Perivale, where most of the BBC’s archives are kept, carefully filed away in a special collection of rarities. This beautiful little record measures 3.5 cm in diameter and sits in a tiny printed sleeve, perfectly pressed on the HMV record label, and no bigger than the palm of your hand. BBC Radio 3 Late Junction’s Verity Sharp and the co-founder of Finders Keepers Records, Andy Votel, disappeared into the BBC Archives in search of obscure vinyl recordings and rare oddities. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |