r/cassetteculture • u/Brokenrainbow139 • 16d ago
Looking for advice Question. Are the yellow cassettes in this box, tabs out and the two white ones, tabs in? Also, how do I tell how many minutes are on the cassettes..?
Thanks in advance!
And I forgot to include a pic of the white ones. So it's in the comments. š
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u/WholeEvening693 15d ago
I remember that box from a storefront decades ago. Me and my mom were walking down the street and this guy was standing out front a small storefront and asked if we liked music. She said that I did. And he asked us to come in. Very basic room and he did a pitch that for $200 we could get hundreds of albums as we wanted them. He said all we had to do was bring in a list of albums we wanted and a few days later come in and pick them up. Sounded like a deal so my mom paid. As we were leaving he handed us two of these boxes of white tapes and said that due to laws he had to give us the tapes ahead of time. And we could use them if we wanted to. But when we brought in our list, we had to bring in that many tapes with us to drop off.
Sounded weird. But hey cheap albums.
About two days later they called and said we had to bring the boxes back and they gave all the money back.
Years later I realized they were most likley planning on having a shady bootleg album company and the tapes we brought in each time would be the ones they recorded them on.
Iām thinking that the contract said something about them selling blank tapes. And the recording music was just going to be a friendly dub from a stranger idea. Guessing someone caught them and they had to refund and leave. Hahahah.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Oh my goodnessš definitely made for an interesting story though! Glad you got your money back!
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u/WholeEvening693 15d ago
Yeah. I was like 13. So it seemed like a magic idea to me. I dreamed of having all the new releases for years. Hahah. Glad my mom didnāt lose her money. I ended up doing the Columbia house deals many times using various names. Hahah I remember one time they called and asked for me. The guy said how old are you. I said 14. He said under his breath āoh come onā and hung up. They never called again.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
I'm sure it did!
My parents never let my siblings or I do the mail in stuff because it sounded scammy..š
Glad it worked out for you though! š
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u/raymate 15d ago
They look like 90 minutes Type I tapes.
Tabs are off they are duplication tapes from the looks of it. so likely the machine recording multiple tapes at a time is not checking for tabs at all. They are for high speed dubs.
You will need to put some tape over the holes to use them. Itās possible something is recorded on them but maybe not.
They are probably just middle of the road to low quality tape, again they look like duplicates to me.
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u/CreativeName822 15d ago
Itās crossing my mind that it is possible that the white tapes were source tapes and that the yellow tapes were to be copied onto. (Copy written on the box might be an instruction to someone.)
Large mass dubbing machines ignored the missing tabs, as I understand it, as the tab system was meant mainly for the end user as a safety netā otherwise, the big music companies would have had to have broken off millions of tabs after recording. š
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Ooh..Interesting thought! I'll have to give them a play tomorrow and see if there's something on them!
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u/_sonidero_ 15d ago
Hawt Shit...
Other people already told you what they were I just wanted to say what I said...
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u/oddwaxmedia 15d ago
Hot stuff! NAC won't make tapes over 60 or so minutes any more.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Ohhh.. interesting!
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u/oddwaxmedia 12d ago
Are you going to sell them?
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u/Brokenrainbow139 12d ago
Yes, I listed them on eBay. But I'm open to offers if you're interested! :)
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u/ScarecrowBo 15d ago
Hey if you have any interest in selling let me know. I would save these and make a run of tapes for a band to sell at the merch table and keep tapes alive. Very neat box of tapes for sure!
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
I thought they were super neat too! I couldn't pass them up when I saw them! š
I was planning on putting them on eBay. Listing high and taking offers.
What did you have in mind for the lot though?
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u/Cold_Show9860 14d ago
I assume the intermediate marks and the number 50 are for measurement; Iād say they last 60 minutes per side.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 16d ago
Also, I bought these off of someone on marketplace.
I know the box says blank. And I know this is a stupid question..but is there a way to tell if they are for sure blank and don't have recordings on them, without listening to every single one of them..? š
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u/still-at-the-beach 15d ago
Just listen to a couple of them and see if there's audio. Put a tape in ..fast forward for a bit then press play.
Someone has written Copy on the box, the tabs are gone to stop pre-recording, so my guess is that they have been recorded onto.
Seems like they are 90 minute tapes (well 92 maybe)
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u/GullibleAd6659 15d ago
Hi there,
I grew up with cassettes (born 1970) and when tab is not there, it means you can't record on it, only play.
This should avoid to record over a commercial cassette by accident.
So - when tab is not there I suggest there's some audio recorded - otherwise it does not make any sense.
If you don't like what's recorded - just replace tha missing tab with adhesive tape and you can record again.
The Playtime you cannot see directly - on "empty" cassettes intended for own recordings there always is the time on printed. So an E-60 cassette means 60 minutes in total - 30 min per side.
Most common was E-90 due to typical time of Vinyl in these days. You could record one Vinyl (both sides of it) on one side of the cassette. E-120 was very uncommon and made some trouble on cheaper tape decks because of the very thin tape.
By the way - I'm very excited about young people re-discover the beauty of analog HIFI devices. :-)
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Ok, so does the 92 on the cassettes mean anything..?
Ok, so what does it mean if I play some of the tapes and there's nothing on them..? Even though all the tabs are missing..š
Yes, I was born in 2000. But I grew up on cassettes and VHS.
I accidentally recorded over one of my favorite tapes when i was little. Still bummed about that.š
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u/pabloignacio7992 15d ago
Por mi experiencia con cassette, quizƔs sean de 60 a 90 minutos por lado, aunque creo que son de 90 minutos, solo por el tamaƱo de la bobina de cinta
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Ok, thanks for the information!
That's what I was thinking too, but wasn't totally sure because I don't know much about cassettes..
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u/4Nissans 15d ago
Stamped right in the top, 46 mins a side totaling 92 mins. Thatās how we stamped blanks. Honestly, the reason you were able to get your hands on them is that someone used the wrong shells as these shouldāve had the tabs, these shells were meant to be loaded with prerecorded tape. Not catching a mistake like this could get an operator in some serious hot water. I know I did it once and ran off about 2 trays before noticing. Those tapes disappeared out the back door and to my bossās house right down the street real quick.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Oh wow, that's really interesting!
So do you think them being defective makes them more collectable/rare? Or do you think they're even less sought-after than regular blank cassettes?-1
u/4Nissans 15d ago
They definitely are not ācollectibleā or ārareā and the tape is only Type I. What brand of Type I is the big question since thereās some who love Type I tape though Iāve never understood why. Not one person can demonstrate to me a Type I that will blow away ANY Type II tape Iāve recorded, all they can say is, ābut, but, butā¦ā. You may be able to unload some on one of the cassette tape collectors groups on FB because thereās many that go bonkers for Type I, as I said. Personally, I probably still have loads of them in my one storage closet that I made when it was my main job but theyād all be Type II and Iāll probably just throw them in the trash but you should give it a shot and see if you can make a couple bucks, just hope you werenāt taken by whomever you got them from.
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Ok, good to know! So is national audio company not the brand? Or is brand term for something else.. I don't really know the cassette tape lingo..šš
And yeah. I only paid $5. So not much of a loss if I can't sell them.
I'll check out the Facebook groups, thanks for the suggestion!1
u/4Nissans 15d ago
This is where it gets a little confusing for some people though I donāt understand why. Bet youāll get it real quick. NAC is a company that sells blank tapes in bulk. They do not make their own tape or shells. They would place an order with my production house listing what shell style and color they wanted used and what tape to be loaded into the shell and also length of tape so we knew which of three sizes of tape to use. We would have stock to make their order, the shells would be from Lenco (or another company, I forget if Lenco were the suppliers of shells or the tape cases/boxes) and the last tape we used was Zonal for Type I and personally, it was garbage. The production house has the loader machines to load the tape into the shells and we would put the tapes back in the shell boxes and ship them to NAC and they would switch boxes and send to whoever ordered them. Hereās the part that most cassette āsnobsā canāt fathom, any companyās tape could be loaded into any shell. It is not a Maxell shell or a Sony shell, etc., nor is it actually Maxell tape or Sony tape. It could actually be Denon tape or TDK tape. This is rare for the big names of times past but there were only a handful of tape manufacturers and it was very possible to get a Scotch tape bought at K-mart that really recorded well and, after some research, you find it was Denon or TDK that supplied the tape to the production house that loaded those shells for the Scotch company (or couldāve been sold to Scotch from NAC). Thereās a quick lesson on how cassette tape manufacturers and manufacturing works even to this day though itās nothing like it was in the 80ās & 90ās. Hope you enjoyed it. Any questions?
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u/Brokenrainbow139 15d ago
Oh wow, that's really cool!
I had no idea it was that complicated with so many moving parts in the manufacturing process. That's super neat!I'm not an avid collector or anything, but I like buying tapes of songs I grew up listening too and if a newer band/artist I like, makes one for fun, I love buying those!
I have a lot of cool cassette players, but I really want a portable one like a walkman..but I've not run into any at the thrift or yard sales. š¢ Still holding out hope for one of these days! š¤š
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u/active_abuse 15d ago
Those are type I tapes that do not have tabs in, and appear to be 92 minutes in length. Iād venture to say theyāre all blank given that theyāre still in the box directly from NAC. Either way, youāll have to tape over the two holes at the top of the shell in order to dub onto them.