Old record club ad scan looks good blown up big

Glyph Jockey made a high-res scan of an old, low-res record club ad. The effect is pleasing. Link

[#1 posted by phasor3000 , September 28, 2007 4:47 PM]

Are we sure this isn't blotter?

[#2 posted by Jesse M. , September 28, 2007 4:56 PM]

Is that Charlie Rich or Dr. Zaius?

[#3 posted by Flying Squid , September 28, 2007 5:13 PM]

Sorry, Mark. I don't see what's pleasing about it when it is bigger...

[#4 posted by Martin , September 28, 2007 5:14 PM]

I would definitely take the Billy Joel LP for a £ 50.

[#5 posted by mrfantasy , September 28, 2007 5:16 PM]

Thing is, this is what the actual record club albums looked like too. That's why they were so cheap. Well, that and the grade-Z vinyl.

[#6 posted by tanner , September 28, 2007 5:32 PM]

To me, it looks like a crappy old, low-res record club ad--a little bit bigger.

[#7 posted by Flying Squid , September 28, 2007 5:56 PM]

Columbia House ads used to look like that too.

[#8 posted by Toestubber , September 28, 2007 6:57 PM]

I find it pleasing to the eyeballs.

[#9 posted by andrewTee , September 28, 2007 7:34 PM]

Is this a magazine/newspaper ad or an LP innersleeve? I can't imagine a magazine that would have such low resolution, yet mix a custom PMS ink (eg, no four-color process dots) for the background. I'm guessing this was on an LP record innersleeve rather than in a magazine. But still a record-club ad, of course.

And very much a thing of beauty, of course.

(Mrfantasy, unless I'm mistaken the record club albums had art identical to the real ones, but they were more cheaply manufactured.)

[#10 posted by BriAnna Shultz , September 28, 2007 8:21 PM]

Andrew,

I'd guess it's a newspaper ad. A lot of times, in cheaper publications even today, you use only a single spot color and black. Fewer plates to make, less precise registration, fewer passes. Likely all of the advertisers on the page would have the option of paying to use the preselected color or not(and the advertisers on the corresponding other half, say page 2 if this were page 7 of an 8 page section).

Usually, they're premixed basic colors. In this case, we are probably looking at process yellow. Between the age of the ad and however the scanner was calibrated we'd never know by looking at this.

BriAnna

[#11 posted by Antonio Lopez , September 29, 2007 12:28 AM]

It looks like the newspaper ads from when I was a kid in LA. I used to cut them out and tape them to cardboard for my GI Joe's record collection (I'm not kidding!).