Transcription Mystery Disc #118

The disc has no date on it, but was sold to me with A recording of Fred Waring from 1942 on an identical acetate. Phonozoic.net has a similar acetate listed from 1948, which gives us a better idea of when that series of blanks were used.Ben Greenblat is a name unknown to me. The two recordings may not be from the same machine, or even the same region, sometimes used resellers sort by type, pairing unrelated blanks. But the blanks were identical, and one is dated so that data is reliable. It cannot be used however to positively date Mr. Greenblat. Worse yet, the handwriting on each side of my blank is different... leaving the possibility that each side is not just undated, but unrelated. That was not so.. at the very end of Side B is a little information...


While his name is misspelled on the label as GRUEEBLAT, at the end of side B just as deterioration makes tracking almost impossible, an announcer comes on. This was definitely a radio transcription, and also definitely Ben Greenblat. The program is named "Piano Ramblings" and it's presented by the Philadelphia Radio Servicemen's Association.


Best yet, at the end of that is that tell-tale TWANG noise when you record over a previously used disc. In the next segment I hear the same announcer reading an almost identical message but this time enough is left to catch the telephone number WARminster-4. There is a third TWANG but the audio after that is unintelligible... I do find a single corroborating entry confirming the Servicemans' Assoc. It appears in the 1958 & 1959 issues of Radio-Electronics, these note that they have elected a new officers. The group, for which there is no recorded history, no longer exists.