From RecordMecca:
A Major Discovery — 149 Unknown Bob Dylan Acetates From His NYC Studio
Treasure hunting.
It’s what I love most about my work as a music historian, collector and dealer. Nothing matches the rush of discovering something previously unknown and historically significant, which adds to the collective understanding of a great musical artist. And three months ago I made one of the great finds in a lifetime of looking. 149 unknown Bob Dylan acetate records, discs that Dylan himself used during the making of Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait and New Morning.
It started with a referral from a friend. For everyone’s privacy, I won’t use names, but I was put in touch with a gentleman from the Northwest. His sister had recently died and he was the executor of her estate. She owned a building at 124 W.Houston Street in Greenwich Village and while selling off her personal items so the building could be put up for sale, he discovered two boxes labeled “Old Records” in a closet. The boxes were filled with 10″ and 12″ acetates; he had never seen an acetate before and while he recognized them as some sort of records, he didn’t really know what they were. Most had labels with Bob Dylan’s name, the address of Columbia Records, and a song title. He knew Dylan had rented the ground floor of the building in the late 60′s and early 70′s as a studio space, and theorized Dylan had either left them when he’d moved out, or thrown them away and his sister had rescued them from the trash (at the time Dylan rented the space, he lived two blocks away at 94 McDougal St.) In either case, they had been sitting, boxed up in the closet, for more than forty years. He took two home with him, and eventually discovered what they were, and we were put in touch.
Acetates?
Acetates are individually cut on a lathe in real time, in a process that is basically the reverse of playing a record. A blank aluminum disc coated in lacquer is put on a turntable, and the master tape of a recording is played, the signal of which is sent to a heated needle which cuts a groove into into the revolving disc. Acetates are made so an artist or producer can listen to a recording that is a work-in-progress; they can be played on a regular turntable, but after 20 or 30 plays the sound quality begins to deteriorate. But the sound on a carefully preserved acetate can be incredible–it’s a first generation record made in real time directly from the master tape. And that was the case here.
Of course there will be copyright, legal and royalty issues but I would love to have a couple of CDs of these. Dyllan doodled on some of the jackets so this just adds to the wow factor.
