Unusual types of gramophone records Unusual types of gramophone records The overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes (7, 10, or 12 inches), playback speeds (33, 45, or 78 RPM), and appearance (round black discs). However, since the commercial adoption of the gramophone record (called a phonograph record in the U.S., where both cylinder records and disc records were invented), a wide variety of records have also been produced that do not fall into these categories, and they have served a variety of purposes. The most common diameter sizes for gramophone records are 12-inch, 10-inch, and 7-inch. Early American shellac records were
Unusual types of gramophone records 10 cm or 2.75 and 4 inches) make them unplayable on turntables with automatic return tonearms. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1960s, bootleg copies of banned Western music were individually recorded onto used medical x-ray film and sold on the black market. These were called "ribs" or 'Roentgenizdat'. The first discs by Berliner Gramophone were black, and that has been the standard color for gramophone records in times subsequent. As early as 1899, the Vitaphone Talking Machine Co. made records that were brownish-red in color. The American Record Company produced records made of blue shellac for their