
The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stamps (2015) - severine
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-curious-tale-of-bhutans-playable-record-postage-stamps/
======
skrebbel
> _For decades, the stamps were dismissed by the philatelic establishment as
> tacky novelties and were, correspondingly, as cheap as chips, [...] valued
> at around £17, the equivalent of £28 at 2015 prices. But following their
> recent discovery by collectors of rare vinyl, particularly in the US, you
> will be lucky to pick a set up for less than £300._

I love how one group of collectors goes "tacky novelty!" and another group
goes "amazing rare find!" over the same thing. It all makes sense, but it's
still weird.

~~~
Gravityloss
“Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple
adventure story; others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and
unlock the secrets of the universe.”

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severine
As another curiosity, the link comes courtesy of Metafilter's 404 service,
which provides interesting links during maintenance downtime.

Metafilter: Cool even asleep.

~~~
lsiebert
Metafilter is a gem.

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beeforpork
Since the exact dimensions are curiously not mentioned, here's my service to
answer your questions:

The stamps have a diameter of typically 69mm, while larger ones are 100mm.

(Source: [http://www.megaministore.com/stamps/asia/bhutan-
stamps/bhuta...](http://www.megaministore.com/stamps/asia/bhutan-
stamps/bhutan-phonograph-record))

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runeb
A similar interesting usage of a exotic medium for pressed music are the bone
records or "rib records", apparently used to smuggle western music into Soviet
[1]. I've also heard of pressing music into postcards, but cannot find a good
source on that at the moment.

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-
grooves-w...](https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-grooves-
weird-secret-history-of-soviet-x-ray-music)

~~~
severine
Wow, thank you!

Rib records are an even deeper rabbit hole:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribs_(recordings)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribs_\(recordings\))

On vinyl postcards, there's at least one current label pressing them:
[http://www.vinylpost.co/releases/](http://www.vinylpost.co/releases/) (not
affiliated).

There goes my morning...

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pewu
In Poland in 60s, there were also some post-related records sold:
[http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/postcards.html](http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/postcards.html)

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BelleOfTheBall
Wow, this is wonderful. How large are they actually? The article says
miniature but, surely, a vinyl record would weigh a substantial amount even at
a tiny size.

The designs on these are really intricate as well, I know that vinyl lovers
tend to say that the addition of pictures hurts sound quality but in this
particular case, a novelty set, I feel like it's more than justified.

~~~
Chris2048
There's a pic here: [https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/listen-these-
tiny-v...](https://www.electronicbeats.net/the-feed/listen-these-tiny-vinyl-
records-used-postage-stamps-70s-bhutan/bhutanese-postage-stamp-records/)

~~~
BelleOfTheBall
Oh, that's downright tiny. I can see how that could fit easily on a regular
package.

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carapace
As if the Kingdom of Bhutan couldn't get any cooler!

\- - - -

I remember an advertising gimmick in the 90's, plastic ribbons with tiny
ridges that you attached to balloons and then you could pinch them and draw
your fingers down, running your thumbnail over the ridges. The result was that
the balloon acted like a speaker for the sound waves encoded in the ridges.

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INTPenis
Techmoan needs to do a report on this. It's right up his alley. For those that
don't know he's a youtuber with some very interesting technical factoids.
Mostly about audio/video.

~~~
reaperducer
He's good for entertainment, but his videos almost always amount to "Here's a
cool thing I bought on Yahoo! Japan, and here's some advertisements about it I
found on Google Image Search." Followed by a tedious walk-through of the
product manual.

Occasionally he does a repair video, but they're only the most basic of
"repairs" like replacing a belt.

It's chewing gum tech. Not exactly high-thinking.

And then occasionally he talks about stuff he knows nothing about. For
example, when he called the United States backward for still having FM radio
stations, completely ignoring the fact that in his own country, the vast
majority of radio broadcasting is on FM.

Then in another video he talks about digital radio in his country is sparse
outside of the major cities. Meanwhile, the United States has continent-
spanning satellite and terrestrial digital radio.

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tomcooks
[http://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/onebhut.html](http://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/onebhut.html)
ORIGINAL article here, found after 3 different blogs cited each other.

web2.0 was a mistake.

~~~
salmonlogs
_> web2.0 was a mistake._

Can you elaborate on this statement? I don't understand what this refers to

~~~
savolai
I suppose it's the blatantly openly html table based layout on the page they
shared.

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cueo
I would love to get a link to the full version of that music in the link. I
know it's a version of Bhutan's national anthem "Druk Tsendhen" but couldn't
find that exact one on YouTube.

~~~
gbuk2013
here you go:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0DXyCiKbDI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0DXyCiKbDI)
:)

~~~
cueo
Thanks, man! Appreciate it. :)

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paypalcust83
Without a familiar object or a ruler in the pictures, it's difficult to tell
how "miniature" these are.

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muliwuli
we had same thing in yugoslavia.

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waste_monk
How whimsical! I love it.

