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Colored reels

Charlie

Charlie

At Sea
I recently bought a couple of used Scotch 177 tapes on the bay. I've never bought used tapes before... i like'm to be NOS still-sealed. You never know what you will get with used tapes.

My interest in these 177's was the fact that the reels were red... really cool looking red. The seller had bulk-erased them.

I got the tapes, and they were in plain white boxes with a clear Scotch label, and on the label says it's Scotch 177 and 1650 feet. Interesting. Even more interesting is it says Library of Congress Mastering Tape.

I tried the tapes out on my RT909 and also a A-4070G. They perform pretty damn good. Also seem to be very clean. I assume that if these were used by the government, they were likely recorded on once and probably played only once after that.

Here's my question... was there something special about the red reels? Were these supposed to signify special use by the government? Or just special used in general? And what's the deal with being 1650 feet? That's an odd ball.

I also have some NIB 1800 ft 177 tapes in the typical Scotch box, but with a gold label instead of red. These have the smoked 3-spoke reels like you would find on 207's.

I might buy some more... the tape seems good... but i really dig those red 3-spoked reels.

You can see them on the bay by searching Scotch 177... believe me- you won't miss them. They kinda jump right out at you.
 
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I just bought a few empty red scotch take up reels with the same white box and Congress label. Fortunetly, mine didnt have tape, just for take up. Maybe thinking Im gonna get some RMG LPR-35 10" 3600' pancakes and spool them on these red take ups. If ya got em on that auction site, I know the seller. Good guy!!
 
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=379327

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Interesting....

The red reels were common at school and other institutions. I remember them fondly from high school. Usually the reels held 3M 175 which was had a "tenzar" backing which was supposed to be a really tough customer and hard to destroy. I have a few red reels here at work that I use to hold 3M leader just because I like the red color,

177 "became" 229 which was marketed as the 1 mil "Highlander/Low Noise" low end tape in the 3M line in the early to middle 70's according to the AES chart of 3M tape types. http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/3mtape/aorprod-cust.pdf

It looks like the LoC must have had 3M make a huge batch for their use at the time.
 
I saw some on the bay. They were $11.00 a pop with or without tape. Can't find the other colors. They look cool.
 
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