Drill Holes In Records?

[Orotava]

Excuse my ignorance but I`ve always wondered when and why the practice of putting drill holes in records started?

 

Do they affect the value of the record at all?

 

Best,

 

Pete

[Peter99]

Excuse my ignorance but I`ve always wondered when and why the practice of putting drill holes in records started?

 

Do they affect the value of the record at all?

 

Best,

 

Pete

Think it was to done to mark old or deleted stock mate. Don't think it affects value.

 

Peter

[Denbo]

My understanding to date is that it meant the record had been deleted and couldn't be purchased any longer as a new release, only from second hand record stores.

In that sense, providing the drilled hole isn't drilled in an inconvenient place, then I'd say it doesn't detract from the records value. Obviously, a minter,with no drilled holes,would no doubt be worth more.

[Orotava]

Ah, that makes sense.  Every day`s a school day eh??!!!

[wiganpotter]

Ah, that makes sense.  Every day`s a school day eh??!!!

I also understood it was "practice" by Berry Gordy to delete tunes and have them drilled so as to ensure royalty  payments or something like that to artists ceased . pretty sure I heard this story somewhere in the mists of time ,

 

WiganBrian .

[Geeselad]

Drill holes are caused by the now endangered record worm, the record worm was rife in the early 70's untill a mass cull was launched by the then mninister for glitter and flares, marc Bolan. 

[Thfcliam]

Good way to smuggle drugs?

[Guest The Record Box]

The drill hole denotes that the record remained unsold for too long. This being the case of a lot of NS records which at that time lacked public demand.

[Dean]

I don't know if I've heard this or made it up, and can't evidence in any way (sounding like a strong argument eh!) but I seem to recall it denoting a non-returnable item, which links to the old stock theory

[purist]

Records with drill holes denote "cut out" stock, either from a too large pressing run or stock which was sold on a sale-or-return basis being returned. Often the pressing run numbers were dictated by whatever "deal" was on at that time, meaning sometimes it was cheaper to have 2,000 run than 200 or 20,000 cheaper than 500 (when contracts dictated that the label would purchase a certain minimum number over a set period to qualify for top discounted price) and all the unsold stock had to go somewhere, and stores like F.W. Woolworths would have racks in them selling these drilled cut outs for a few cents each.

The Salesmen themselves sometimes carried a drill, and when they visited customers rather than take back all the unsold stock they'd offer them back to the customer at a fraction of cost but they had to be drilled to stop them being sold at full retail price.This system worked well especially away from densely populated areas, or at a large distributor.

These cut outs which were often sitting around unsold in wharehouses or distributors were amongst the early hits by UK bulk buyers like JA, and was why they were available at a price cheap enough to make it possible to pay the cost of bringing them back to the UK and selling them without bankrupting the importers.

Some companies simply used marker pens to deface the labels, we often see two large X's, especially on promotion copies, and that was their version of making them unsaleable at full retail. Others, oddly enough, used a thin hot metal spike ( think of an electric soldering iron) to deface the 45's, and whilst they still had a small hole similar to the drill, you can get the melted vinyl appear on the flip in the form of a hardened blob, but most times this will flake off or gets picked off with a blade ( somebody told me that you could get the same "blob" when they'd drilled too many and the drill bit got too hot  and blunt and effectively became the same as the hot spike, but the blob appeared on the one 45 that was the bottom of the pile they were drilling)

If you accept that truly mint records have a premium added to their sale price, then accordingly a drill hole does prevent that record, even if it is otherwise mint, reaching top price, so whilst a hole doesn't as a matter of fact reduce the sale price of average vg+ or less records, it does for "mint" collectors.

Incidentally they used to operate a similar system of defacing stock with books in the 60's/70's, where they'd tear off the paperback cover, which is how I became a reader of novels. Partly because they were so cheap but also you never knew what the books were about before you'd read them, kind of like an entertainment lottery because without the artwork you couldn't be prejudiced against the genre, and without the summary usually found on the back cover every book was  a mystery ;-)

[Peter99]

Records with drill holes denote "cut out" stock, either from a too large pressing run or stock which was sold on a sale-or-return basis being returned. Often the pressing run numbers were dictated by whatever "deal" was on at that time, meaning sometimes it was cheaper to have 2,000 run than 200 or 20,000 cheaper than 500 (when contracts dictated that the label would purchase a certain minimum number over a set period to qualify for top discounted price) and all the unsold stock had to go somewhere, and stores like F.W. Woolworths would have racks in them selling these drilled cut outs for a few cents each.

The Salesmen themselves sometimes carried a drill, and when they visited customers rather than take back all the unsold stock they'd offer them back to the customer at a fraction of cost but they had to be drilled to stop them being sold at full retail price.This system worked well especially away from densely populated areas, or at a large distributor.

These cut outs which were often sitting around unsold in wharehouses or distributors were amongst the early hits by UK bulk buyers like JA, and was why they were available at a price cheap enough to make it possible to pay the cost of bringing them back to the UK and selling them without bankrupting the importers.

Some companies simply used marker pens to deface the labels, we often see two large X's, especially on promotion copies, and that was their version of making them unsaleable at full retail. Others, oddly enough, used a thin hot metal spike ( think of an electric soldering iron) to deface the 45's, and whilst they still had a small hole similar to the drill, you can get the melted vinyl appear on the flip in the form of a hardened blob, but most times this will flake off or gets picked off with a blade ( somebody told me that you could get the same "blob" when they'd drilled too many and the drill bit got too hot  and blunt and effectively became the same as the hot spike, but the blob appeared on the one 45 that was the bottom of the pile they were drilling)

If you accept that truly mint records have a premium added to their sale price, then accordingly a drill hole does prevent that record, even if it is otherwise mint, reaching top price, so whilst a hole doesn't as a matter of fact reduce the sale price of average vg+ or less records, it does for "mint" collectors.

Incidentally they used to operate a similar system of defacing stock with books in the 60's/70's, where they'd tear off the paperback cover, which is how I became a reader of novels. Partly because they were so cheap but also you never knew what the books were about before you'd read them, kind of like an entertainment lottery because without the artwork you couldn't be prejudiced against the genre, and without the summary usually found on the back cover every book was  a mystery ;-)

Than ks for that comprehensive answer - interesting.

 

P

[Only Dreaming]

I bought a M- copy of Spencer Wiggins  "Lonely man" a few years back and it came with a 'bb' hole. The problem being that the hole is in the deadwax so you have to be quick to lift the needle as it nears the end. I'm pretty sure that this has devalued the record. I've also got a few more records where the 'bb' hole goes through the credits, which are less desirable as a result.

 

Dave

 

Edited April 26, 2013 by Only Dreaming

[Denbo]

Records with drill holes denote "cut out" stock, either from a too large pressing run or stock which was sold on a sale-or-return basis being returned. Often the pressing run numbers were dictated by whatever "deal" was on at that time, meaning sometimes it was cheaper to have 2,000 run than 200 or 20,000 cheaper than 500 (when contracts dictated that the label would purchase a certain minimum number over a set period to qualify for top discounted price) and all the unsold stock had to go somewhere, and stores like F.W. Woolworths would have racks in them selling these drilled cut outs for a few cents each.

The Salesmen themselves sometimes carried a drill, and when they visited customers rather than take back all the unsold stock they'd offer them back to the customer at a fraction of cost but they had to be drilled to stop them being sold at full retail price.This system worked well especially away from densely populated areas, or at a large distributor.

These cut outs which were often sitting around unsold in wharehouses or distributors were amongst the early hits by UK bulk buyers like JA, and was why they were available at a price cheap enough to make it possible to pay the cost of bringing them back to the UK and selling them without bankrupting the importers.

Some companies simply used marker pens to deface the labels, we often see two large X's, especially on promotion copies, and that was their version of making them unsaleable at full retail. Others, oddly enough, used a thin hot metal spike ( think of an electric soldering iron) to deface the 45's, and whilst they still had a small hole similar to the drill, you can get the melted vinyl appear on the flip in the form of a hardened blob, but most times this will flake off or gets picked off with a blade ( somebody told me that you could get the same "blob" when they'd drilled too many and the drill bit got too hot  and blunt and effectively became the same as the hot spike, but the blob appeared on the one 45 that was the bottom of the pile they were drilling)

If you accept that truly mint records have a premium added to their sale price, then accordingly a drill hole does prevent that record, even if it is otherwise mint, reaching top price, so whilst a hole doesn't as a matter of fact reduce the sale price of average vg+ or less records, it does for "mint" collectors.

Incidentally they used to operate a similar system of defacing stock with books in the 60's/70's, where they'd tear off the paperback cover, which is how I became a reader of novels. Partly because they were so cheap but also you never knew what the books were about before you'd read them, kind of like an entertainment lottery because without the artwork you couldn't be prejudiced against the genre, and without the summary usually found on the back cover every book was  a mystery ;-)

I was just about to say the exact thing.

[Tezza]

Records with drill holes denote "cut out" stock, either from a too large pressing run or stock which was sold on a sale-or-return basis being returned. Often the pressing run numbers were dictated by whatever "deal" was on at that time, meaning sometimes it was cheaper to have 2,000 run than 200 or 20,000 cheaper than 500 (when contracts dictated that the label would purchase a certain minimum number over a set period to qualify for top discounted price) and all the unsold stock had to go somewhere, and stores like F.W. Woolworths would have racks in them selling these drilled cut outs for a few cents each.

The Salesmen themselves sometimes carried a drill, and when they visited customers rather than take back all the unsold stock they'd offer them back to the customer at a fraction of cost but they had to be drilled to stop them being sold at full retail price.This system worked well especially away from densely populated areas, or at a large distributor.

These cut outs which were often sitting around unsold in wharehouses or distributors were amongst the early hits by UK bulk buyers like JA, and was why they were available at a price cheap enough to make it possible to pay the cost of bringing them back to the UK and selling them without bankrupting the importers.

Some companies simply used marker pens to deface the labels, we often see two large X's, especially on promotion copies, and that was their version of making them unsaleable at full retail. Others, oddly enough, used a thin hot metal spike ( think of an electric soldering iron) to deface the 45's, and whilst they still had a small hole similar to the drill, you can get the melted vinyl appear on the flip in the form of a hardened blob, but most times this will flake off or gets picked off with a blade ( somebody told me that you could get the same "blob" when they'd drilled too many and the drill bit got too hot  and blunt and effectively became the same as the hot spike, but the blob appeared on the one 45 that was the bottom of the pile they were drilling)

If you accept that truly mint records have a premium added to their sale price, then accordingly a drill hole does prevent that record, even if it is otherwise mint, reaching top price, so whilst a hole doesn't as a matter of fact reduce the sale price of average vg+ or less records, it does for "mint" collectors.

Incidentally they used to operate a similar system of defacing stock with books in the 60's/70's, where they'd tear off the paperback cover, which is how I became a reader of novels. Partly because they were so cheap but also you never knew what the books were about before you'd read them, kind of like an entertainment lottery because without the artwork you couldn't be prejudiced against the genre, and without the summary usually found on the back cover every book was  a mystery ;-)

Took the words out of my mouth Ha ha !

Interesting stuff.  Never knew that !

[night nurse]

i always thought it was because it was a import how wrong was i . but im with geeselad Drill holes are caused by the now endangered record worm

[KevH]

They drill straight through the box as well i heard.Box ,records,the lot.

 

So did 20th Century records use the gold paint blob in the same way.?

Edited April 26, 2013 by KevH

[Peter99]

 

So did 20th Century records use the gold paint blob in the same way.?

I seem to have read that somewhere recently too. Might have been Ian Dewhirst

 

Peter

[Only Dreaming]

They drill straight through the box as well i heard.Box ,records,the lot.

 

So did 20th Century records use the gold paint blob in the same way.?

I'm not sure about 20th Century but ABC records certainly used the gold blob and star to mark deleted stock.

 

Dave

 

[Pete S]

They drill straight through the box as well i heard.Box ,records,the lot.

 

So did 20th Century records use the gold paint blob in the same way.?

 

They did, as did ABC as someone says above and their subsidiaries like TRC.

[Guest The Record Box]

I was always wondering about that gold blob Pete.

[Guest Garry Huxley]

the drill hole has allways been known as a deletion hole

 

got this from a radio station dj in states on last visit

Edited April 26, 2013 by Garry Huxley

[KevH]

the drill hole has allways been known as a deletion hole

 

But known as a "bb" hole as well.As in a bb gun.

[Guest]

I always thought it was done to make it easier to listen to the other side.

[Lfcjunkie]

i was told in the states the drill hole was put  through rendering the record from new and making it void from some tax,but best I was told by a couple of older guys here in uk as i got into the northern collecting scenes when i asked about the drill holes i was told " so that they could be carried on the cargo planes a wire ran through them all the way down the plane from which all these records hung" can you imagine threading a plane full of 45s this way  hey and these knobheads beleived it themselves

dave L

[night nurse]

i was told in the states the drill hole was put  through rendering the record from new and making it void from some tax,but best I was told by a couple of older guys here in uk as i got into the northern collecting scenes when i asked about the drill holes i was told " so that they could be carried on the cargo planes a wire ran through them all the way down the plane from which all these records hung" can you imagine threading a plane full of 45s this way  hey and these knobheads beleived it themselves

dave L

that is so funny lol

[kevinsoulman]

I THOUGHT IT WAS WHERE THE STRING WENT WHEN THEY WERE USED AS BALLAST, SO THEY MOVED IN TIME WITH THE ROLL OF THE SHIP

KEV

[Swifty]

i was told in the states the drill hole was put  through rendering the record from new and making it void from some tax,but best I was told by a couple of older guys here in uk as i got into the northern collecting scenes when i asked about the drill holes i was told " so that they could be carried on the cargo planes a wire ran through them all the way down the plane from which all these records hung" can you imagine threading a plane full of 45s this way  hey and these knobheads beleived it themselves

dave L

I was told it was Boats for ballast

 

 

Swifty

[Swifty]

Sorry Kev , you beat me to it

[KevH]

Load of ballast if you ask me.

[Guest The Record Box]

The drill hole is for securing purposes to stop people nicking it!!

[Swifty]

I was told it was Boats for ballast

 

 

Swifty

I think I meant Ballast for Boats   , this Vino and the 7 pints is going to my fingers !

[Peter99]

I think I meant Ballast for Boats   , this Vino and the 7 pints is going to my fingers !

I thought to myself - what the fcuk is that Swifty lad on now.  Don't go parking your fat ass on any records now.

 

Peter

 

[Guest The Record Box]

How wide is swiftys ass then?

[Peter99]

How wide is swiftys ass then?

Wide enough for the old lad to keep breaking records with it.

 

LOL

 

Peter

[Guest The Record Box]

Even worse if he farted then?

[Swifty]

How wide is swiftys ass then?

Cheeky Twot ! It's just I have this habit of spinning a few tunes and occasionally mange to sit on one (and it's always the most expensive one )

Like Moses Smith - Keep on Striving Doh!

 

Swifty

[Swifty]

Wide enough for the old lad to keep breaking records with it.

 

LOL

 

Peter

Hey Peter , I have feelings you know mate   Anyways just going to spin a few in the main room , will get back to you on broken records tomorrow matey

 

Swifty   (Who hasn't got a big arse ! Belly not to bad though !)

[Peter99]

Hey Peter , I have feelings you know mate   Anyways just going to spin a few in the main room , will get back to you on broken records tomorrow matey

 

Swifty   (Who hasn't got a big arse ! Belly not to bad though !)

Just joking matey. Spin a few 70's for me will yer our kid. I might play a few mesen in a bit.

 

i haven't had a drink yet but tonight I will mostly be drinking extremely large gins with slim line bitter lemon - mainly due to being a fat bar steward.

 

 

Peter

[Peter99]

Even worse if he farted then?

 

 

Cheeky Twot ! It's just I have this habit of spinning a few tunes and occasionally mange to sit on one (and it's always the most expensive one )

Like Moses Smith - Keep on Striving Doh!

 

Swifty

Yeah yer cheeky twot! Swifty's my mate.

 

Anyway where's these invisible fecking record boxes of yours? Are they those gay flight bag type things.

 

Peter

 

[Guest The Record Box]

Be off with you or I will call the Police.

[Peter99]

Be off with you or I will call the Police.

 

 

LOL

[snooky]

Whats the rarest northern soul record with drill hole......

I bought the issue copy of Tobi Legend from JM which had a drill hole and hairline crack in the label....mint otherwise....i gave to Dave Thorley as a gift from a 35 year old promise..

snooky

[Guest The Record Box]

Mine is Donny Osmand!!

[Swifty]

My best one is a big hole with no record round it , I'll get me coat

 

 

Swifty

 

Just put on  - Emotions - Stealing Love Stax/Volt which is my fave at the moment

 

Sorry for going off topic - Hole

[Peter99]

 

 

Just put on  - Emotions - Stealing Love Stax/Volt which is my fave at the moment

 

 

Very nice.

 

Peter

 

[Guest Paul]

I'm sure we've discussed this before but records were drilled to identify them as cut-out stock, rendering those copies non-returnable for credit at any price, especially regular dealer price. Other methods of identification included X marks on labels, paint marks, cutting slots into the edges or LP sleeves or removing the sleeve corners etc.

 

A modern day method of identification is to obliterate the bar codes on CD sleeves etc. Sometimes a hole is punched through the bar code or the image is defaced with a heavy marker.

 

Similar identifications can be found on discounted books etc.

 

Those copies were then offered in bulk to cut-out distributors and wholesalers who supplied non-returnable overstocks and deletions to retailers at bargain prices.

 

Unless the discounted stock had been identified, there was the obvious danger that some retailers or wholesalers could try to return discounted copies in an attempt to claim full credit by pretending those copies had originally been purchased (or stocked) at full price.

Selling excess stock in bulk at huge discounts (sometimes even lower than manufacturing costs) gave record companies some instant cash and eased their costly storage problems. And I suppose it also helped them to forget why the were stupid enough to press so many copies of that "New Kids On The Block" album that nobody ever wanted!

The same or similar identification methods have also been used for promotion copies and product samples etc.

Artist royalties and mechanical royalties weren't usually paid on the sale of cut-out stock.

Some powerful artists negotiated contracts which prevented their record companies from selling their product at cut-out rates because it would damage the artist's reputation if their LP was seen on sale at 99p or whatever. In those cases the excess stock was destroyed to hide their embarrassment.

 

Cut-outs are far more common in the US because their industry is heavily based on consignment business (sale or return) rather than firm sales or non-returnable sales. So it isn't unusual for a US record company to boast about having a "million seller" because they've shipped a million copies but a few months later, when the returns start coming back, they soon realise they certainly haven't sold a million copies!

It would be comical if trade papers such as Billboard and Music Week had published charts called the "Hot 100 Returns" to show which artists were the most overhyped and which record companies were pressing and shipping far too many copies. I'd like to see who would have topped that chart each week.

 

 
 

Paul

[Ljblanken]

Records with drill holes denote "cut out" stock, either from a too large pressing run or stock which was sold on a sale-or-return basis being returned. Often the pressing run numbers were dictated by whatever "deal" was on at that time, meaning sometimes it was cheaper to have 2,000 run than 200 or 20,000 cheaper than 500 (when contracts dictated that the label would purchase a certain minimum number over a set period to qualify for top discounted price) and all the unsold stock had to go somewhere, and stores like F.W. Woolworths would have racks in them selling these drilled cut outs for a few cents each.

The Salesmen themselves sometimes carried a drill, and when they visited customers rather than take back all the unsold stock they'd offer them back to the customer at a fraction of cost but they had to be drilled to stop them being sold at full retail price.This system worked well especially away from densely populated areas, or at a large distributor.

These cut outs which were often sitting around unsold in wharehouses or distributors were amongst the early hits by UK bulk buyers like JA, and was why they were available at a price cheap enough to make it possible to pay the cost of bringing them back to the UK and selling them without bankrupting the importers.

Some companies simply used marker pens to deface the labels, we often see two large X's, especially on promotion copies, and that was their version of making them unsaleable at full retail. Others, oddly enough, used a thin hot metal spike ( think of an electric soldering iron) to deface the 45's, and whilst they still had a small hole similar to the drill, you can get the melted vinyl appear on the flip in the form of a hardened blob, but most times this will flake off or gets picked off with a blade ( somebody told me that you could get the same "blob" when they'd drilled too many and the drill bit got too hot  and blunt and effectively became the same as the hot spike, but the blob appeared on the one 45 that was the bottom of the pile they were drilling)

If you accept that truly mint records have a premium added to their sale price, then accordingly a drill hole does prevent that record, even if it is otherwise mint, reaching top price, so whilst a hole doesn't as a matter of fact reduce the sale price of average vg+ or less records, it does for "mint" collectors.

Incidentally they used to operate a similar system of defacing stock with books in the 60's/70's, where they'd tear off the paperback cover, which is how I became a reader of novels. Partly because they were so cheap but also you never knew what the books were about before you'd read them, kind of like an entertainment lottery because without the artwork you couldn't be prejudiced against the genre, and without the summary usually found on the back cover every book was  a mystery ;-)

 

...more on the books.

 

my understanding is that book stores bore very little risk (so they didn't "buy" the books they got from distributors, they jst retailed them and split the profits with the distributor on each book actually sold). but when books didn't sell, they would only send back the torn-off cover (cuz no one wanted to pay to ship worthless books that weren't selling!). the distributor would just get the cover as proof that the book wasn't sold (and presumably destroyed). 

 

under-handed book sellers would send back the torn-off covers, and then try and sell the books cheaply with no cover. sometimes old paperbacks will have a warning on the inside that said "if you have purchased this book without a cover, it was sold to you illegally and will result in your favorite book presses going out of business" or something like that.

 

...i always thought "drill holed" records were ones marked as promos for free distribution to radio stations and record stores. guess not.

 

also, i started a thread a while back debating how people thought about drill holes when buying/selling (in terms of degrading value). i don't even noticed them (unless in the run-out grooves!)

Edited April 28, 2013 by ljblanken

[Robbk]

The drill hole denotes that the record remained unsold for too long. This being the case of a lot of NS records which at that time lacked public demand.

HA! HA! MOST NS records had NO demand from the day of their release!  They didn't need a little hole to denote that nobody wanted them anymore.

[Robbk]

...more on the books.

 

my understanding is that book stores bore very little risk (so they didn't "buy" the books they got from distributors, they jst retailed them and split the profits with the distributor on each book actually sold). but when books didn't sell, they would only send back the torn-off cover (cuz no one wanted to pay to ship worthless books that weren't selling!). the distributor would just get the cover as proof that the book wasn't sold (and presumably destroyed). 

 

under-handed book sellers would send back the torn-off covers, and then try and sell the books cheaply with no cover. sometimes old paperbacks will have a warning on the inside that said "if you have purchased this book without a cover, it was sold to you illegally and will result in your favorite book presses going out of business" or something like that.

 

...i always thought "drill holed" records were ones marked as promos for free distribution to radio stations and record stores. guess not.

 

also, i started a thread a while back debating how people thought about drill holes when buying/selling (in terms of degrading value). i don't even noticed them (unless in the run-out grooves!)

 

When I was a youth, back in the early 195os, I used to buy most of my comic books sans cover for 5 cents each (rather than the full retail price of 10 cents).  Ten cents was a LOT of money for a little kid, back in those days!

[Guest The Record Box]

I think you have completely misunderstood my posting.